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EDOUARD RICHARD 



ACADIA 



MISSING LINKS OF A LOST CHAPTER . 



IN AMERICAN HISTORY 



BY 

AN ACADIAN 



EX-MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS OF CANADA 



Vol. I. 



NEW YORK 

HOME BOOK COMPANY 

45 Vesey Street. 




.^ v 



Copyright, 1895, 
By EDOUARD RICHARD, 



/* 







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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



The work I am now undertaking has never been done 
before. This sweeping assertion may astonish the 
reader ; but there is this very good reason for making 
it : the archives of the most important part of this 
history have been either carried off, or destroyed, or 
simply lost. Which of these alternatives is the most 
likely will appear later on. 

An American writer, Philip H. Smith, treating of 
the same subject, gave his book this title : " Acadia — 
A Lost Chapter in American History." Though he had 
not the documents needed for a complete reconstruction, 
yet, with his sound judgment and great impartiality, by 
making good use of what he had in hand, he has man- 
aged to hit upon a line of development that affords 
a glimpse of what was hidden in the missing docu- 
ments. 

That lost chapter I believe I have reconstructed in its 
essential parts. The reader will judge if the title I 
have chosen suits the work I lay before him. Have I, 
then, found the missing portion of the archives ? Yes 
and no. A considerable part of them will, probably, 
never be found ; but good luck has put in my way frag- 
ments of them, which are amply sufficient to throw 
light, if not upon the secret details of this history, at 



2 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

least "upon its main outlines. Close and continued 
thought has done the rest. 

It is easy to understand what lively interest these 
events excite in a great grandson of the transported 
Acadians. That which for others was only a matter of 
curiosity became for me an intense attraction, urging me 
to undertake researches and meditations that seem to 
have disheartened those who have hitherto approached 
the question. The very mystery that enshrouds it has 
drawn to it many writers ; but labor that is continually 
running against all sorts of difficulties soon becomes 
wearisome, and so it has happened that all these writers 
have ended either by leaving a blank here or by copying 
the shadowy sketch found in authors who had opened the 
way. 

All the importance of this history of Acadia, from 
the English conquest in 1710 until 1763, was centered 
in the events that brought about the transportation, 
in the transportation itself and in its consequences ; 
that, is to say, in the period that extends from 1743 
to 1763, or even to 1766. Before that, there is noth- 
ing but unimportant facts. No one will tarry to de- 
scribe a river peacefully flowing through a valley 
where the landscape on all sides is monotonous in its 
sameness ; but, once this tiresome monotony is past, if 
we reach mighty and fantastic cliffs, overhanging rocks, 
foaming surges dashing from chasm to chrism, we 
stop, we are thrilled with wonder at the wild wreck 
wrought by the ceaseless buffeting of the waters. This 
is the aspect of the story I am about to tell. It is 
the only part of Acadian history that presents a real 
and varied interest, it ought therefore to have been 
related in detail ; and yet, all we have of it so far is 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 3 

a rough sketch that leaves out the palpitating pity of 
it all. 

How comes it that the documents of so important a 
period have disappeared? Was this the result of ac- 
cident or design? Many writers have asked this 
question before. Those who have answered it have all 
done so in the same way. Others have ignored it, 
giving the reader no hint of this strange disappearance. 
Granting that these latter did not share the suspicions 
of the former, it seems evident that they ought at least 
to have combated those suspicions, or at all events to 
have mentioned the disappearance of the documents, were 
it only to let the reader know why they were so brief in 
their treatment of so important an epoch. Did they 
think that obvious inferences unpalatable to them were 
easy to draw? Perhaps. 

However this may be, few writers have bestowed on 
this " Lost Chapter " as much as one-sixth of the space 
I am giving to it. Now, unless I be despairingly 
prolix, this fact suffices to show that I must have under- 
gone serious labor and have found much information 
that is new. On this score I may assure the reader 
that he will not be disappointed. What opinion soever 
he may form of my work, he will not be able to deny 
that he has been interested by a mass of unedited docu- 
ments, by novel views, and by inferences from which it 
is hard to escape. Most of my readers, I am sure, will 
readily admit that this book is quite a revelation, that it 
solves a problem over which the world has been puz- 
zling for more than a century. 

. Every one knows how deep are the impressions pro- 
duced on a child by the tales he has heard at the fire- 
side, especially when their very character is full of dra- 



4 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

matic interest ; and, if these events are personal to the 
authors of our being, then they take on portentous pro- 
portions and become ineradicably riveted in our minds. 
So it has been for me with the events that preceded, 
accompanied and followed the deportation. Sitting on 
my mother's knee, I have heard them repeated a hundred 
times, and the tears they often drew from me would 
alone suffice to perpetuate the remembrance of them. 
The whole of my childhood was spent in the midst of 
an Acadian settlement. Then were still alive the sons 
of those who had been deported, facts were still fresh in 
their memories, and each family could reconstruct the 
series of its misfortunes from the time it left Grand Pre*, 
Beaubassin or Port Royal till its final settlement in 
Canada.* 

Since that time the generation that was dying out 
has made way for a new one. I have nryself long left 
my childhood's home, and those memories, persistent 
though they be, have lost the precision that was needed 
to give them the weight of carefully collected traditions. 
Besides, as my recollections bear only on the purely 
material facts of the deportation and of the misfortunes 
that followed in its train, they would afford but slender 
interest to my readers. This only will I say, that the 
invariable answer of all whom I questioned as to the 
cause of this deportation was : the refusal to take the 
oath of allegiance unless it were stipulated that they 
should not bear arms against the French. 

" But," I used often to reply, " that cannot be ; your 
fathers must have been guilty of some act of hostility, 

* I still have by me an aged uncle — Raphael Richard— who remembers 
very distinctly having heard his grandfather relate the incidents of the de- 
portation, of which he had been himself a victim at the age of eleven. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 5 

in one way or another, which forced the Government 
to act with rigor ; the punishment was too severe, and 
yet the choice of means alone seems blameworthy." 
And there came back always the precise and formal 
answer— that never, at any time, did the people dwelling 
in the peninsula on English territory, take up or even 
threaten to take up arms. 

In spite of their affirmations I had always thought 
that they were mistaken ; and, strange as it may seem, 
my only wish had been to convince myself that they 
were wrong. Thus at least would the bitterness evoked 
by these memories have been lessened by the certainty 
that the cause of all this woe was to some extent a 
righteous one. I would then have likened, or, at any 
rate, tried to liken these sad events to so many other 
calamities that have, in bygone ages, befallen all other 
nations indiscriminately. Whatever may be the cruelty 
of a chastisement, it is some consolation to know with 
certainty that it was partly deserved ; forgiveness and 
oblivion become possible, nay, perhaps a duty. 

No such consolation has issued from my conscientious 
researches. I am convinced, beyond all doubt, that 
tradition faithfully reproduced historic truth ; but 
— eagerly do I proclaim it, incredible though it may 
seem — the Home Government had nothing to do with 
either the resolving upon or the carrying out of this act 
of barbarity that has left upon the civilized world an 
impression of ineradicable and unassuageable pain. 

There are events and men that fill a large place in 
the eyes of their contemporaries. They bid fair to be 
long held in remembrance and perhaps to be immortal- 
ized in history ; yet, hardly have they disappeared, when 
every trace of them is forgotten. Others again there 



6 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

are, apparently less important, less noticed at the time, 
which never seem to lose the interest that clings to them. 
Finally, there are other events and men that may be 
said to grow in magnitude with the very growth of the 
distance that separates us from them. To this last 
category belong, in ancient history, the siege of Tio} r , 
the battle of Thermopylae; men like Homer, Plato, 
Socrates; and, in modern history, the signing of the 
Magna Charta, the massacre of St. Bartholemew, 
Columbus, Shakespeare, Washington. So will it be, I 
venture to think, with the deportation of the Acadians. 
This unique fact of the dispersion of a people will grow 
as time grows. The very effort made to blot out all 
trace of it, by suppressing both the documents and the 
names that should engrave it on the memory, will 
contribute more than anything else to make the 
recollection of it lasting. Where the historian cannot 
penetrate the poet enters. These mutilated or lost 
chapters of history then beeome a field from which 
the poet gleans the golden grain that has escaped 
destruction, and gives to grateful humanity those 
touching poems for which he is repaid by immortality. 
And, indeed, what field can offer him a richer harvest 
than this one ? A happy and prosperous people rudely 
snatched from its home, dispersed on every shore ; families 
rent asunder, so that scattered members seek each other 
during many long years ; the melancholy monotony of 
lives consecrated to sorrow and suffering, — all this is so 
charged with " the slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune " as to produce in him who ponders it all, after 
more than a centuiy, an indefinable feeling of sadness. 
The victims of this dismal drama still tug at your heart 
strings like the wailings of some hero of ancient trag- 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 7 

edy. The consequences of this dispersion cannot be 
measured ; they have reached out into every family and 
to each member of every family ; each heart has felt the 
torture, each nerve the cruel twinge. 

If I have not been able to find in these events that 
comfort which the certitude of a merited chastisement 
might have afforded me, I must admit that the non-partici- 
pation of the Home Government has been a great relief 
from the sinister thoughts that haunted my brain. No ; 
the English Government never ordered this deportation, 
nor ever did anything that might imply it ; quite the 
contrary. This work will give indisputable proof that, 
at the very moment when Governor Lawrence, falsely 
taking His Majesty's name, was executing the project 
he had long entertained, orders were addressed to him 
condemning, in energetic terms, the mitigated project he 
had submitted to the Lords of Trade. It is a strange 
thing — which shows how superficially history is some- 
times written — that not one of the documents establish- 
ing so important a fact has been cited by any English 
historian. For some, the motive of their silence will 
appear in the course of this narrative. For others, it 
was a question of following the beaten path rather than 
facing the labor of cutting through a jungle. 

It is not my intention to indicate even briefly, in 
these preliminary remarks, the important data on which 
this book rests. That would cause unnecessary delay. 
Suffice it to assure those who take a deep interest in 
matters of history, that they will find in this volume 
ample satisfaction for their curiosity, and, probably, the 
solution of the riddle that has long teased them. Per- 
haps they will be still better pleased to follow gradually, 
without further explanations, the connected series of 



8 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

facts brought to light by many hitherto unpublished 
documents to be found here. 

I am fully aware of the prejudices that may arise in 
the minds of my readers, prejudices whose name very 
likely is legion ; but I am also aware that they will 
disappear one by one, till the last of them, I hope, will 
evaporate long before the reading of my last chapter. 
Far from wondering at these prejudices, I should be 
liable to them myself, were I in the reader's place ; I 
could not, at first blush, shake off the impression that 
he who relates events with which his ancestors have 
been so painfully connected, cannot view them with 
that calm impartiality which is a requisite of history. I 
unhesitatingly confess that these events have produced 
on me the keenest of impressions, that my heart has 
bled at the recital of the woe that crushed my forefathers. 
Still, despite all this, I hope to convince the reader that I 
have not been biassed. No doubt education lias a mighty 
influence in giving, from childhood, a fixedness to the 
opinions of one's whole life. For most men early educa- 
tion is everything, they are its slaves from the cradle to 
the grave ; it has equipped them with spectacles, green 
or blue, through which they look at and pronounce with- 
out appeal on the most varied colors. But, there are 
others who, thanks to a more elastic temperament, are able 
to make a clean sweep of whatever is cumbrous in their 
past, to begin to examine anew whatever is not certain, 
and thus to break through the narrow horizon that shut 
them in. For better or for worse, this is, in a very 
marked degree, my own disposition. 

This work was first intended for my French com- 
patriots ; but, on second thoughts, I decided to present 
it also to my English-speaking fellow-countrymen. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 9 

Albeit historians are not wont to dilate on their own 
personality, I will, nevertheless, make bold to say that, as 
far as I may judge, my chief characteristic is kindliness. 
Wherever I could, without too greatly jeopardizing the 
truth, I have been delighted to lean to the side of indul- 
gence. When I might have called in question the sin- 
cerity of several historians, I refrained from doing so ; 
nay, I have sometimes been so indulgent as to suppose, 
against my plain convictions, honorable intentions, on 
the principle that it was better to sin by excess of silence 
and mercy rather than by too great severity. But, when 
brought face to face with systematic attempts, unmistak- 
able and continually renewed, to falsify history, I have 
thought that silence became a fault, and that the finger 
of scorn must be laid on these dishonest practices, and 
on those who perpetrated them with malice prepense. 

The exception I have just hinted at bears on the 
compiler of the volume of Archives of Nova Scotia and 
on Mr. Parkman. Regretfully do I say this ; but the 
evidence leaves no possibility of doubt. 

As I advance nothing without proof, the public will 
be in a position to judge whether or not my motives are 
solidly grounded. I know that I am laying myself open 
to reprisals ; but I believe that I can successfully face 
them, and that I can defend my position still more 
strongly than I have done here. However, despite my 
efforts to master the question, I may have made some 
mistakes ; some secondary or even important facts may 
have escaped my knowledge ; this would not be surpris- 
ing, since I am engaged in reconstructing, in a lost 
chapter, the fragments that have not been destroyed. 
If there are mistakes, I will willingly acknowledge 
them ; but it is one thing to be ignorant of unpublished 



10 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

facts, and quite another to distort or suppress what one 
cannot but know. 

However, my conclusions agree in the main with 
those of most historians. During more than a hundred 
years all that was written on the subject was pretty 
V much from the same standpoint. First, conies Raynal, 
who wrote about 1780, shortly after the deportation. 
His work might possess some value, if he had lived 
in the country, or if, at least, he had visited it and col- 
lected information on the spot. Being a contemporary 
of the events — he was born in 1713 — he might have 
written a work of much weight. Unfortunately he did 
not avail himself of his opportunities. So, without ques- 
tioning his sincerity, I attach so little value to his say- 
ings and his opinions that I do not quote him even 
once. His views have no importance except as a reflec- 
tion of the ideas and sentiments that then were current 
in France. Besides, Raynal does not strike me as a 
serious writer ; at best, he is a superfine story-teller in 
the pompous and turgid style of the epoch. The flat- 
tering picture he draws of Acadian manners is, I admit, 
too ideal not to have been somewhat embellished by his 
imagination. And yet we have numerous proofs that, 
in Halifax itself, a goodly portion of the citizens did not 
/ think him very unreal. Haliburton, who wrote forty 
years later, quotes Raynal's appreciations, and points 
out that he was not so far from the truth as people might 
imagine. 

After Raynal comes Haliburton himself (Thomas 
Chandler Haliburton). Here we have no longer a for- 
eigner, nor a superfine story-teller, but a son of the soil, 
whose grandfather, a JLoy^ilist, had immigrated to the 
country after the American war of Independence ; a 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 11 

man, moreover, who rose to the Supreme Court Bench 
of his province, a remarkable author, who enjoyed the 
respect of his fellow-countrymen, and was honored by 
his Sovereign. His position, his character, his judicial 
mind, his great and varied talents mark him out as the 
noblest representative of the eminent men this highly 
favored province has produced. 

His History of Nova Scotia does not give us the full 
measure of his literary ability ; but it does of his noble 
character, of his rectitude, and of the efforts he made to 
acquire a mastery of his subject, so as to guide the public 
along the path his conscience showed him. He founded 
the history of his province, for which he received a vote 
of thanks from the Legislature. To this day his work 
is continually consulted as an authority, and is a founda- 
tion for most of those who treat of local history. This 
book was published in 1829. As it was in preparation 
for many years previous to that date, and as he was then 
a middle-aged man, he may be said to have been a con- 
temporary of some of the men who figured at the time 
of the deportation. Thus, besides his researches in his- 
torical documents, he could take advantage of much 
oral information on matters that were still fresh in men's 
memories. The sequel will show that his conclusions 
do not differ materially from mine. 

Thirty years later (1859), Rameau published " La 
France aux Colonies " and, in 1889, "Une Colonie Fe*odale 
en Ame*rique." In 1865 appeared the " History of Nova 
Scotia " by Beamish Murdoch. The volume of " Nova 
Scotia Archives," begun in 1857, was completed in 1869. 
Campbell's " History of Nova Scotia " came out in 1873, 
which year also gave us Moreau's " Histoire de l'Acadie." 
Hannay's " History of Acadia " is dated 1879 ; Philip 



12 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

H. Smith's " Acadia — A Lost Chapter in American His- 
tory," 1884 ; Casgrain's " Pdlerinage au Pays d'Evange*- 
line," 1888 ; and Parkman's " Montcalm and Wolfe," 
which contains a good deal about Acadia, 1884. 

With the exception of Hannay and Parkman, and 
perhaps of Murdoch, who, however, hardly expresses 
any opinion on the events he describes, all the other 
writers named above hold nearly the same view as Hali- 
burton. 

Of late years history has been enriched by an exceed- 
ingly precious collection of documents, which throw a 
flood of light on the very darkest part of the period. It 
is really unfortunate that men like Murdoch and Hannay, 
who seem to have been sincere, had not access to this 
collection. As to Parkman, I have the positive proof 
that he knew of it but chose to ignore it. 

This voluminous collection is due to the Rev. Andrew 
Brown, Presbyterian minister, who died at Edinburgh, 
when he was Professor of Rhetoric in the university. 
While living at Halifax, from 1787 to 1795, he collected 
materials with the intention of writing a history of 
Nova Scotia. This history, incomplete and in manu- 
script, was found with all the original and other docu- 
ments that accompanied it, in a grocer's shop, and 
bought, Nov. 13th, 1852, by Mr. Grosart, who sold it to 
the British Museum in London. Some years ago it was 
copied, in whole or in part, by the Historical Society of 
Halifax, in whose archives it is now. I am particularly 
indebted to this collection, from which numerous extracts 
have been published in " Le Canada Francois," if I am 
in a position to recompose, almost entirely, this lost 
chapter. The importance of this MS. is obvious. An 
historian was needed who should be a closer contemporary 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. lo 

of the obscure period than Haliburton. This want is 
now supplied, and all the more effectually because 
Brown's position and character would satisfy the most 
fastidious critic. 

The volume of Archives, published in 1869 by order 
of the Legislature, was edited by Thomas B. Akins, 
Commissioner of the Public Archives of the Province. 
I do not hesitate to affirm that the documents have been 
selected with the greatest partiality, and with the pur- 
pose, poorly disguised in the very preface, of getting 
together such papers as might justify the deportation of 
the Acadians. This accusation I have not deliberately 
striven to support by hunting up examples, and yet the 
proofs of it have incidentally accumulated in such pro- 
fusion as to open the eyes of those who are not wilfully 
blind. It is easy to see that this compiler aimed at start- 
ing a reaction against the opinions and sentiments that 
had been current for more than a century. His intention, 
evidently, was to make this volume an arsenal for all 
who wanted weapons, for he was fully aware that few 
writers would give themselves the trouble to go behind 
his compilation. 

A mere summary of documents will not do duty for 
the history of this period. He who should accomplish 
no more than this would have written nothing that even 
remotely resembled history ; first, because of the scarcity 
of materials, and then because, up to 1758, we are face 
to face with the omnipotent authority of the governor 
and of a soldier at that. Inured to military discipline, 
these governors knew only how to command and imperi- 
ously to enforce passive obedience. Will any one pre- 
tend that, under such conditions, history can be written 
solely with the orders of this potentate, and his letters, 



14 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

to the Secretary of State, whose representatives in this 
case were the Lords of Trade ? Such a pretension 
were absurd. Clearly, these letters exhibit one side 
only of the question, the governor's ; they are sure to 
contain nothing that is unfavorable to him, nothing that 
could militate against him and in favor of those who, 
most of the time, silently obeyed his unjust orders, or 
whose recriminations are not recorded, had they plucked 
up enough courage to contradict him or to utter a mur- 
mur. And yet these are the only documents we possess 
for this period ; nay, even these one-sided statements 
have, in great part, disappeared. The only thing a man 
can do who undertakes to give the public a somewhat 
faithful picture of the reality is — for the satisfaction of 
his readers as well as his own — to make the best use of 
these wretched remnants, to piece them together, to try 
to penetrate their hidden meaning, the motives by 
which this despot may have been actuated ; in a word, 
to get hold of some evidence from which an opinion may 
be formed of his character and his acts. If, in the teeth 
of these difficulties, the historian succeeds in explaining 
the governor's acts by means of the latter's own docu- 
ments, in which he has said only what he chose to say ; 
if, moreover, the historian detects the motives which he 
had every reason to hide with every facility for hiding 
them, so as to convict him of this or that evil design 
against those who have left nothing in their own defence ; 
such a result is indeed surprising. 

Yet that is what I have done, and more particularly 
for Lawrence and his accomplices. All, or almost all 
previous writers seemed to have perceived that the con- 
duct of the Acadians, even as represented by Lawrence 
himself, had not justified their deportation. For a hun- 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 15 

dred years there has been scarcely a dissentient voice on 
this point. Such being the case, if it is true that the 
English Government never ordered the deportation, Law- 
rence must have had some motive for acting as he did. 
This motive I had some inkling of directly I began to 
study the question. Soon I understood clearly what it 
was. That was not the difficulty. The great, the im- 
mense difficulty, lay altogether in proving the motive, 
when all helpful documents had disappeared. It has 
been said, with more wit than truth, that, if you want to 
ferret out a crime, you must " find the woman in the case." 
Though this may sometimes hold for a crime in the singu- 
lar, it cannot be true of a crime in the plural, as this one is. 
Here I should say : " Find what profit the criminal got." 
This profit I have found and the proof thereof, clear 
enough to satisfy any court of justice, though it were 
absurd to require the evidence of law courts for events 
that took place almost 140 years ago. 

It is comparatively easy to write the history of a 
country enjoying representative institutions, or of a long- 
settled nation like France or England. The State papers 
are confirmed or contradicted by so many other docu- 
ments that there is not much need of commentary in quot- 
ing authorities. But, in this case, nothing like history can 
be written without meditating, weighing probabilities, 
and drawing legitimate inferences. I should have 
found it much easier to be a mere compiler ; but then, I 
might as well have done like so many others and copied 
right and left, or, better still, have written nothing at 
all. Others, possibly, may have examined more docu- 
ments ; but perhaps no one has brought to bear on the 
question so much of the deep consideration needed for 
grasping the dominant purpose of the interested parties, 



16 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

the intentions and feelings lurking between the lines of 
official or other documents. 

Addressing myself to the subject with all the impar- 
tiality at my command, I thought I should find at least 
a partial justification of the deportation, and that thus I 
should free my soul from a burden that weighed heavily 
upon it. This justification I did not discover ; I reached 
a contrary conclusion ; but I have at all events the con- 
solation of knowing that the guilt does not bear directly 
upon a nation, but upon individuals whom history has 
not yet properly branded. This book will, in my judg- 
ment, effectually clear England's Home Government's 
honor of the deepest historic stain ever attached to it. 
Let the stigma be obliterated which England lias hitherto 
borne ; burn it into the foreheads of Lawrence, Belcher, 
Wilmot, Morris, and their accomplices. 

If it is true, on the one hand, that the policy of Eng- 
land has always been one of self-interest, rather than of 
sentiment, it may be held that, as far as the Home 
Government is concerned, its policy has been in general 
honorable and compares favorably with that of any 
other nation. England owes its high standing to the 
wisdom and large-mindedness of its statesmen. Minis- 
tries rose and fell ; but the main lines of its policy were 
unchanged. Impervious alike to sudden enthusiasm, to 
gradual apathy, and to unexpected reversals, England 
pursued its ends with unvarying resolution and change- 
less tenacity of purpose. Obstacles seemed only to 
whet its ambition, and to strengthen its determination. 

The policy of France, on the other hand, may be 
described in nearly opposite terms. Colonies were 
founded with enthusiasm, only to be left to themselves 
a few years later. This is precisely what took place in 






INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 17 

Acadia. About a hundred families were settled there, 
and then left without adequate assistance to carry on 
heroic struggles against a much more powerful enemy. 
When this handful of colonists became a happy and pros- 
perous embryo nation, when it was seen what store 
England set by keeping its hold on them, France began 
again to covet what she had neglected or forsaken. 

Instead of founding colonies by multiplying the colo- 
nists, she thought she could found them with fortresses. 
One single million out of the thirty millions spent on 
the rock of Louisburg would have peopled Acadia in a 
way to insure its permanent possession by France. 
Whilst Canada, with its sixty thousand souls, was check- 
mating New England's twelve hundred thousand, 
France, the prey of courtiers, was making merry. Vol- 
taire, leader of the high court of witlings, declared that 
Canada was only " a few acres of snow ; " and Canada 
was lost. 

These colonies had duties towards France, and they 
fulfilled them nobly. Can she in her turn say as much ? 
Has the father of a family no duties beyond the beget- 
ting of children ? Does he not owe them also education 
and protection ? 

After more than a century of forgetfulness, that same 
France has recollected that that child, conceived in a 
burst of love and carelessly cast off, is now grown up 
and keeps a fond remembrance of his mother. She has 
likewise perceived that those acres of snow are an 
empire, the possession of which enriches her rival. Vain 
regrets ! England has long since appropriated all the 
desirable lands of our planet. Its tongue, its institu- 
tions, its capital accumulated through the colonies 

themselves, now encircle the entire globe. In these are 
2 



18 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

its might and its wealth. While France was making 
merry, England was attending to business ; which was 
surely worth Voltaire's witty saying, which people 
laughed at one day, and would have forgotten the next, 
had not France been mourning over it ever since. 

Poor France ! In order ever to retain a firm hold of 
your sceptre, you had invented the Salic law. You 
would not be governed by queens, and you have been 
ruled by harlots. You were rich and honored ; those 
women squandered your coins and your honor. What 
havoc has wrought in you the wit of your madcaps ? 
You are now striving to retain the privilege of drying 
your fish on a corner of this continent that once be- 
longed to you, or at least might have been entirely 
yours ; it would still be yours, with all the wealth 
hidden under its acres of snow, if you had had less of 
the wit that evaporates and more of the wit that bears 
fruit. 

You are getting wiser ; you tardily acknowledge the 
folly of your wit; you perceive that England has 
become strong and wealthy just because of a wiser 
appreciation of what you despised. But it is too late ! 
A few acres of sand in the Sahara, where your people 
cannot live, a few thousand negroes in Senegal, 
Dahomey or Congo, will never make up for the loss to 
you of those French hearts that would have throbbed in 
the vast and healthy plains of this marvellous conti- 
nent. 

O France ! Forgive to a son of those unfortunate 
Acadians the recalling of these cruel memories .... 
our sufferings have been so bitter. 

Forsaken, forgotten, the Canadians have always kept 
their love for France. They changed their allegiance, 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 19 

but only to become ere long the masters of their own 
destiny. Their fate, except inasmuch as they were for- 
gotten by France, was not otherwise a cruel one. Not 
so with the Acadians. Can they forget the woes 
wrought by that abandonment? 

However, though we cannot forget the incalculable 
wrongs inflicted on us, we now can, with a juster ap- 
preciation of facts, forgive the English Government the 
share it may have had in them. But we cannot acquit 
the true culprits ; we cannot absolve those who, without 
any cause, without orders or against the orders of the 
Home Government, impelled solely by sordid motives, 
despoiled us and cast us on foreign shores. No ; such 
injustices, such wrongs cannot be forgotten. So long 
as our children shall be able to retrace their origin, they 
will recall and bemoan the sufferings of their fathers. 
It is not in our power to blot out from our hearts these 
poignant recollections. We may still cherish and bless 
the flag that floats above our heads ; we may excuse 
and condone whatever share England may have had in 
these events ; but we cry enough ! to those who throw 
dirt at us in order to whitewash a dozen miscreants 
whom all the waters of Niagara could not cleanse. Let 
honest men join in restoring the historic truth which 
certain historians of most recent date have done their 
best to pervert. British fellow-countrymen ! show us 
that British fair play is not an empty word. Brand the 
culprits with the stigma they deserve. Then, will 
Acadians forgive, bless, nay, perhaps forget .... pro- 
vided that be possible after so many misfortunes. 

A very natural curiosity impelled me to study this 
period of history ; deep convictions led me on to write. 
I regret this curiosity ; it has flung upon my life a 



20 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

cloud of sadness which nothing can remove. I have 
doomed myself to climb again unceasingly this Calvary 
of suffering, humiliation and ignominy, to which my 
forefathers were condemned. My mind has fastened 
itself upon this mournful epic as Pygmalion, of ancient 
fable, riveted his soul upon the statue he had made ; 
with this essential difference that he fell in love with 
the work of his hands, whereas I am haunted by a cease- 
less and merciless nightmare. I have wished to see ; 
I have seen ; I recoiled with horror, but the die was 
cast. Like the lover who could not resist his longing 
to behold once more the dead face of her who had 
charmed away his heart, I drew back horrified ; and yet 
I must needs bear the pangs my rashness lias provoked. 
A thoughtful writer — Thucydides — has said, "Happy 
the people whose annals are vacant." This saying has a 
paradoxical sound to us who behold on all sides nations, 
whether mighty or feeble, whether lowly or haughty, 
glorying in their past, viewing it over and over again 
with complacency, as if to renew in themselves the joy 
they taste in contemplating the features of their ances- 
tors magnified by the enchanting distance and by the 
illusions of love. But can this be the case for Acadians ? 
To recall the contentment and the virtues of their 
fathers, the joys of the century that preceded their depor- 
tation, is to recall the deportation itself and the century 
that followed. Their evil fortune is inseparable from 
their good fortune ; to look at the one is to look at the 
other ; to magnify the one is to magnify the other. Their 
history is a Janus with two faces, of which the more 
recent, the fresher to their memory, the hideous one, is 
ever staring at them. Gladly would they turn him round 
to view his other face, on which their eyes would rest 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 21 

with delight. But, whenever they conjure up the past, 
the sad, the hideous face will always eclipse the sweet 
and agreeable one ; the nearer will absorb the farther. 
Woe will ever be a mightier reality than weal ; the 
former is the positive element, the latter is merely, so to 
speak, a negative quantity. For Acadians the paradox, 
" Happy the people whose annals are vacant," will bear 
repeating. 



ACADIA: 

MISSING LINKS OF A LOST CHAPTER IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

Discovery of Acadia (1604).— Foundation of Port Royal (1605).— 
Brief Summary of the Colony's History under the French 
Regime until its Cession to England in 1710. 

With the discovery of a new continent a new era had 
begun for the civilized world. Columbus had been that 
providential man who, braving prejudices, breaking 
through obstacles, had dowered the Old World with 
these unknown lands. 

The horizon opened out by this discovery to the eyes 
of wondering Europe was too immense, too dazzling in 
its novelty to be clearly pictured in the mind. Great 
must have been the sensation produced; but it were 
difficult to realize how far the consequences that should 
flow therefrom were understood. It is possible that the 
enthusiasm of the moment gave a glimpse of the pro- 
digious development we are witnessing to day. That 
enthusiasm, which suddenly bursts forth from a great 
discovery, is often the best guide to the grasping of the 
remote consequences it implies. All at once, under its 
influence, the mind is illumined like the horizon aflame 
with the lightning flash that cleaves the clouds of a 
summer's night. In that brief moment, swifter than 



24 VAIN EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION. 

thought, the eye has followed the line of light tearing 
through space : it has seen clouds heaped up, strange 
forms, contours vividly outlined; yet, the mind has 
retained scarcely anything of this magnificent panorama, 
for the view was too sudden and too rapid to engrave 
on the retina the multitudinous details. The back- 
ground alone of this dazzling scene was visible for a 
moment; all the foreground was overlooked. Such, 
likely, was the case with Columbus's discovery. The 
enthusiasm of the moment afforded a glimpse of the far- 
off scene which the new Continent was to lay before 
Europe. It was a scene of treasures heaped up, of 
numberless ships ploughing the main to bring to Europe 
the wealth of this unknown world, of new gatherings of 
men, of cities springing up in the wilderness. Kings 
foresaw empires to found, men of wealth and station 
domains to acquire, the poor man a plot of land to 
live on. 

That was, perhaps, the background of the picture; 
but the eye had caught nothing of the vague space be- 
tween. That space must soon be crossed by whoever 
longed to reach what was promised by the iridescent 
vision of the transient scene. Then were to arise 
difficulties unnumbered and ever-recurring, unforeseen 
obstacles which would cast doubts on the reality of that 
vision. Nevertheless, the eye had not deceived, enthu- 
siasm had not warped the judgment. Only, four cen- 
turies will barely suffice to reach the brilliant future of 
which that scene had afforded a glimpse. 

We marvel to-day that more than a century was 
needed to take final possession of the beautiful con- 
tinent we inhabit. To understand this fact, we must 
take into account the numberless difficulties encoun- 



VAIN EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION. 25 

tered by the first explorers. Not less then sixteen regular 
expeditions were organized by England, France and 
Portugal in the course of a century, either to discover a 
northwest passage to China, or to explore the North 
American continent itself, or for purposes of immediate 
settlement. Not one of these attempts had any prac- 
tical result. Some of them, rather more fortunate than 
the others, first gave rise to great hopes ; but they were 
invariably followed by some other expeditions so disas- 
trous as to remove, for several years, from the nation 
that had suffered, all idea of founding a colony. Then, 
again, a little later, some other nation had its turn. 
One, two, and sometimes even three expeditions followed 
in quick succession, to end in a new disaster, and the 
game was given up. Disgust took the place of enthu- 
siasm ; but as often also, enthusiasm, sharpened by 
greed, ambition or jealousy, was rekindled only to issue 
in disheartening results. Each nation hoped to do better 
than its rival, each expedition hoped to avoid the faults 
of its predecessors ; and the sum total of them all was 
uniform failure. Tempting, indeed, must have been the 
prize, since men were not utterly repelled by the danger 
and sterility of so many efforts. 

Of these numerous expeditions four were lost in the 
depths of the ocean, some others were scattered by 
storms and partly destroyed, and almost all were deci- 
mated by disease and destitution, so that any fresh 
attempt was discouraged for a time. 

The expedition which came nearest to lasting success 
was undertaken in 1541 by Roberval, whom Francis I. 
had appointed Viceroy of New France, with Jacques 
Cartier as Captain General of the fleet. The enterprise 
was on a larger scale than any of those which had pre- 



26 VAIN EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION. 

ceded it ; but it failed because the ships did not start 
together and because of misunderstandings. Roberval 
was to perish with his entire fleet in a fresh attempt ; 
and thus success was delayed for sixty-three years more. 

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that, 
besides these official expeditions, America was not at 
all, or was not often visited. As early as 1504 its coasts 
were frequented by Basque, Breton and Norman fisher- 
men very regularly. " Sometimes," says Hackluyt, 
"there were not less than a hundred boats fishing 
there." Lescarbot mentions a man called Savalet who 
had made forty-two voyages to the coasts of the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, 

These annual and regular voyages, repeated during a 
whole century, had made the public of the maritime 
towns both in France and England familiar with this 
part of America. France was the first to resume, in 
the beginning of the seventeenth century, the projects 
of colonization formed and so often abandoned in the 
preceding century. This time, if the success was not yet 
equal to the hopes entertained, the founding of a colony 
was to be definitive ; and the example was soon to be 
followed by England and other nations. 

De Monts, a nobleman of Henry IV.'s court, organized 
this expedition. He set out from Havre de Grace 
March 7, 1604, accompanied by de Pontgrave*, the Baron 
de Poutrincourt, de Champlain, d'Orville, Champdore, 
and others. Their destination was the peninsula of 
Nova Scotia, then called la Cadie or VAcadie, and the 
place definitively chosen for the colony was Port Royal, 
of which, with the adjacent territory, de Monts made a 
grant to his friend Poutrincourt. In the course of the 
following summer a few dwelling-houses, a store, and a 



FOUNDATION OF PORT ROYAL. 27 

palisade enclosing the whole, were put up. Thus was 
Port Royal founded on the very site now occupied by 
the city of Annapolis. This was the first permanent 
settlement by Europeans in these northern climes. 

As I have undertaken that epoch only which begins 
in 1710, when Port Royal was taken and Acadia was 
definitively ceded to England by the treaty of Utrecht, 
I have no intention of dwelling at any length on the 
events that marked the stormy beginnings of Acadia's 
history. I will merely sum up in a few pages a whole 
century of facts, so as to make it easier to understand 
what followed the cession of the country to England. 
Not that the earlier history is uninteresting, — far from it ; 
it were impossible to find on this continent any other 
spot so interesting, at that very time, as Acadia was. 
The most thrilling dramas of America in the seventeenth 
century were played in the waters of the Bay of Fundy 
(Baie Franchise). 

Exposed as was this feeble colony, separated from 
Canada by vast distances and impenetrable forests, left 
to its own resources, without immigration, without 
assistance proportionate to the dangers of its situation, 
it was the theatre of perhaps greater vicissitudes of war 
than have fallen to the lot of any other country in the 
world. While, on the one hand, it was, or might have 
been, highly useful to France ; on the other, it was a 
constant menace to the commerce and tranquillity of 
the English colonies. It is there that expeditions of 
adventurers were organized against the New England 
colonies ; there, too, attacks were made upon the French. 
If it was a fine field for organizing, it was equally open 
to attack. Whether the two nations were at war or in 
peace, it was often war anyhow in these parts. A 



28 FOUNDATION OF PORT ROYAL. 

grievance or a mere pretext was enough to determine 
disastrous hostilities. Boston and Acadia sometimes 
waged war on each other on their own account, in spite 
of temporary peace and amity between the two crowns ; 
and, what is more, on certain occasions, Acadia was the 
scene of prolonged hostilities between Frenchmen who 
claimed the right to govern the country. 

Nothing, to my mind, is more captivating than the 
story of this province from 1604 to 1710. It is to 
America what Greece once was to Europe, and the Bay 
of Fundy evokes almost as many memories as the iEgean 
Sea. The scenes there enacted have been so various and 
so dramatic, the actors thereof give one such an impres- 
sion of heroism and of half-savage grandeur, that one 
can hardly refrain from treating them as legendary, as 
if they belonged to an epoch that is lost in the mists of 
antiquity. Biencourt, d'Aulnay, the two de la Tours, 
Saint-Castin, Denys, Subercase, Morpain, are so many 
legendary heroes whose names are still re-echoed by 
forest and rock from New Hampshire to the inmost 
recesses of the Bay of Fundy. 

To the many difficulties which Poutrincourt and his 
son Biencourt experienced in solidly founding their 
colony of Port Royal, there was added another of a far 
more serious kind. During the whole of the sixteenth 
century, inexperience, stress of weather and disease had 
been the principal causes of the failure of colonization 
in the New World; now came the turn of human 
passions, ambition, jealousy, cupidity. This continent 
was not vast enough to satisfy the covetousness of many 
nations. To Samuel Argall, whose record in Virginia 
was so bad, belongs the honor of having begun the 
conflict for this immense territory, if, indeed, the acts of 



FBENCH REGIME. 29 

piracy which he committed can be ranked as warfare. 
His first attempt was the destruction of the colony of 
Saint-Sauveur in Mount Desert Island, on the coast of 
Maine ; the pretext of this outrage was Cabot's voyage, 
one hundred and sixteen years before, and priority of 
discovery on that account. Emboldened by this easy 
victory, he made another attempt and this time destroyed 
Port Royal. 

By this one fell stroke was annihilated all Poutrin- 
court's outlay of time and money ; and France must 
have been strangely careless of her colony, to say nothing 
of her honor, since she made no move to demand repa- 
ration for the outrage committed by Argall. And, 
indeed, for twenty years afterwards, Acadia is hardly 
mentioned at all, so little, in fact, that, in 1621, it was 
ceded by the King of England to Sir William Alexander, 
Earl of Stirling. And yet the colonists whom Poutrin- 
court had brought with him were still in the country ; 
some of them contrived to till the soil of the upper 
reaches of the river, a few miles from the old fort ; 
others had sought employment from Biencourt and de 
la Tour. 

Seeing their hopes ruined by the destruction of Port 
Royal, Biencourt and his companions, taking advantage 
of the friendship of the Indians, had become wood- 
rangers (coureurs de bois)* hunters, trappers. This 
state of things continued till the treaty of St. Germain- 
en-Laye in 1632, by which Acadia was restored to 
France. Of the Scotch colony founded by Sir William 
at Port Royal, there remained only three or four fami- 
lies which were soon merged in the French population : 
for instance, the Colsons, the Paisleys, and the Mellanson 
family, which became very numerous and important 



30 FRENCH REGIME. 

in the Acadian colony under the French form of 
Melanc,on. 

After this retrocession, France once more turned her 
attention to Acadia. A company was formed having at 
its head Isaac de Razilly, his kinsman d'Aulnay de 
Charnisay, and Nicolas Denys de la Konde. As their 
object was trade rather than colonization, they settled 
with their immigrants at La Heve, which was con- 
sidered more suitable for traffic than Port Royal. As 
Governor, Razilly bestowed upon Denys in fief all the 
Gulf coast from the Bay des Chaleurs to Canso, and 
upon La Tour the old post of Cape Sable and the river 
St. John. In this latter place, at a spot called Jemsek, 
La Tour built a fort to which he gave his own name. 
Thanks to his long experience and his activity, thanks 
also to the sense of security then pervading the country, 
he made this a most important trading post. 

De Razilly died in 1636 without haying been able 
to accomplish all the great projects he had in view. 
D'Aulnay and de la Tour were both named Lieutenant- 
Governors ; but the limits of their respective territories 
and jurisdiction were so badly defined as to lead to 
hostilities that long paralyzed the development of the 
colony. Whatever may have been d' Aulnay's faults, it 
seems certain that he projected a great agricultural 
establishment and the progress of the colony. With 
this object he abandoned La Heve to settle at Port 
Royal, which was much better suited for a colonial set- 
tlement. After gathering about him the people that 
had first settled at La Heve, he went to France, whence 
he returned with a score of colonists. It was he also 
who inaugurated that system of dikes which was after- 
wards to become so widespread. Unfortunately, the 



FRENCH REGIME. 31 

incessant quarrels provoked by his pugnacious humor 
made his efforts well-nigh fruitless. 

When France made no protest against the destruction 
of Port Royal, when she refrained from putting a stop to 
the armed contentions of La Tour and d' Aulnay, of 
La Tour and Le Borgne, of Le Borgne and Denys, all 
fighting for the possession of the country, she showed 
so little care for her honor that Cromwell, in spite of 
the peaceful relations between the two kingdoms, con- 
ceived the idea of seizing Acadia. As war was then 
waging between England and Holland, he gave instruc- 
tions for the capture of New Holland, and, the fleet 
being in these waters, for the subsequent capture of 
Acadia. Peace was signed before New Holland could 
be taken ; but Acadia, unable to offer serious resistance, 
was seized (1654). 

In 1667, it was again returned to France by the 
treaty of Breda, and in 1670 M. de Grandfontaine came 
to assume official possession. 

As may be supposed, these dissensions, these repeated 
attacks, the indifference of France, all this put together 
scarcely favored the establishment of a colony on a firm 
basis ; and so the census of the following year, under 
M. de Grandfontaine, tells a sad tale. After so many 
sacrifices of time and money, the population showed 
only about 400 souls, more than three-fourths of whom 
were at Port Royal. There must have been, in various 
places, a nomadic population proportionately pretty 
numerous, which does not enter into this census ; but 
it was made up chiefly of a few half-breed families set- 
tled on the coast, especially at La Heve, and of those 
families which, having intermarried with the Indians, 
had adopted their mode of life. This census, as well 



32 FRENCH REGIME. 

as the following ones, is confined to the population of 
purely French origin ; and it is chiefly from this little 
group of 47 families that the Acadians spring. Here 
are the names : Bourgeois, Gaudet, Kessy, de Foret< 
HSbert, Babin, Baigle, Blanchard, Aucoin, Dupeax, Ter- 
riau, Savoie, Corporon, Martin, Pcllerin, Morin, Brim, 
Gauterot, Trahan, Cyr, Thibaudeau, Petitpas, Bourg, 
Boudreau, Guilbaut, Granger, Landry, Doucet, Gir- 
ouard, Vincent, Breau, Le Blanc, Poirier, Comeau, 
Pitre, Belliveau, Cormier, Rimbaut, Bugas, Richard, 
Melangon, Robichau, Lanoue, d' Ent t •>■,,<< mt, de la Tour, 
Bertrand, de Bellisle. These are the main heads ot 
branches, and several of these families were already 
divided into two or more branches, as was the case for 
those whose names are subjoined : Boudrot, Girouard r 
Gaudet, Ilebert, Bourg, Martin, Terriau, Blanchard, 
Aucoin, Brim, Commeaux, de la Tour. Each family 
averaged six children, and the descendants of each of 
them now run up into the thousands. 

The census of 1686 exhibits a population of about 800 
souls, of whom 461 were at Port Royal, 164 at Mines, 
78 at Beaubassin, 90 in other places mentioned, and the 
remainder scattered here and there on the coast ; thus 
the population had about doubled in 15 years. In 1671 
60 persons, 5 of whom were women, had arrived ; but, as 
the census of 1686 registers only 86 new names, some 
of these persons may have either gone to Canada or 
taken service in the garrison and gone back to France 
afterwards. These are the new names : Le Prince. 
Brassard, Douaron, Levron, Lort, Arsenaut, Bergeron, 
Belief out aine, Tourangeau, Barillot, Godin dit Chatillon, 
Benoit, PrSjean, Bastarache, Fardel, Henry, Gareau, 
Laperrierc, Michel, Gourdeau, La Bauve, La Pierre dit 



FRENCH REGIME. 33 

Laroche, Pinet, Rivet, Mirande, La Barre, AubirirMig- 
nault, Cochu, Cottard, Mercier, Lavallee, Lagasse, Blou, 
Desorcis, Martel, Dubreuil. The three last named, I 
think, must have gone to Canada, and Cochu, Cottard 
and Fardel to France ; at any rate their names do not 
appear in any subsequent census. From 1686 to 1710, 
85 new colonists, at most, came, and these were, to a 
great extent, soldiers disbanded from the small garrison 
which the Government maintained at Port Royal. * 

From 1671 the agricultural population confined itself 
more and more to its land ; every immigrant, every dis- 
banded soldier became a farmer. When, after a few 
years' growth, families found themselves pinched for 
room at Port Royal, they sought settlements else- 
where for their children. Thus it is that, one after the 
other, Beaubassin (Amherst), les Mines (Horton, 
Wolfeville, Windsor, etc.), Cobequid (Truro), Chipody, 
Peticodiac, Memramcook sprang up. Frequently, whole 
families migrated to these new settlements, which had 
the double advantage of being freer from the vexations 
of a government that was often too troublesome, and 
safer from the oft-repeated attacks of the English. 

From the treaty of Breda till 1710, a space of 40 
years, Port Royal was besieged no less than five times, 

* The last general list of names, dated 1714, shows 77 new names : Le 
Basque, Moyse, Ollivier, Parisien, Dubois, Bernard, Thibeau, Rossette, Le 
Breton, Lyonnais, Lafont, Allard, Le Marquis, Emmanuel, Dupuis, Denis, 
Barnabe, Beaumont, Le Maistre, Allain, Cadet, Lessoile, Raymond, Donat, 
Maillard, Vilatte, Surette, Savary, Dumont, Lavergne, Lalande, Simon, Bab- 
ineau, Paris, Cosse, Saint-Scene, PEsperance, Manceau, Pothier, Dambouc, 
Laliberte\ Laurier, Yvon, Samson, Blondin, Bideau, Gentil, Gousille, Lang- 
lois,Vigneau dit Maurice, Champagne, Clemenceau, La Montagne, Mouton, 
Jasmin, Voyer, Toussaint, Boutin, Roy, Chauvert, Boucher, Darois, De 
Saulniers, Boisseau, Herpin, Gu6rin, Longuepee, Hache, Lambert, Chias- 
son, Maisonnat, Carre, De Vaux, Ondy, Nuirat, Veco, Leger. 
3 



34 FRENCH REGIME. 

whereas, barring a raid on Beaubassin and Mines by 
Church in 1696, the settlers in these latter places were 
fairly sheltered from the perils that beset Port Royal. 

All the names that figure at Beaubassin and Mines 
(Grand Pre, Riviere aux Canards, Pigiguit, etc.) are 
the same as at Port Royal. So it was, somewhat later, 
at Cobequid, Peticodiac, Chipody and Memramcook to 
the north of the Bay of Fundy. 

As the census was taken many times during the 
French period, it is easy to follow up the development 
of these different groups, and to get a pretty fair idea of 
the number of new colonists that came to swell the 
original stock. These were, for by far the most part, 
unmarried men who were obliged by force of circum- 
stances to marry the daughters of the oldest settlers, of 
the 47 heads of families that had settled in the country 
before 1671. Thus we see that there were only live 
women among the 60 immigrants that arrived at Port 
Royal in 1671. Whence we conclude that, 30 or 40 
years later, the entire population was linked together in 
bonds of kinship that must have powerfully contributed 
to remove dissensions and to produce that social condi- 
tion with which we are familiar. 

Some modern writers have treated the picture of 
Acadian manners as a creation of the fervid fancy. It 
has been held that the imagination was author of much 
of it, that this ideal society was incompatible with what 
we know of human nature. I am willing to grant, 
indeed, I have no doubt, that the conventional picture 
has been embellished by fancy ; yet I hold that a close 
study of the circumstances of this people makes one 
understand better how a state of things clearly proven 
to have existed was possible. The defects common to 



FRENCH REGIME. 35 

all Frenchmen, particularly those which spring from 
their too great sociability, such as jealousy, backbiting, 
idle gossip, existed there as everywhere else, but toned 
down by the exceptional status of the people. Nor was 
their condition always enviable ; it certainly was not so in 
the early days of the colony, when these families were 
strangers to each other, and probably also during the 
greater part of the French occupation. 

The destruction of Port Royal by Argall, France's 
neglect, the frequent raids of Anglo-Americans had 
forced a certain number of the first colonists to become 
adventurers, forest rangers (coureurs de bois), fishermen 
in the train of Biencourt, Denys, La Tour. This roving 
element could not be expected to show as high morality 
as the first followers of Poutrincourt, or as the society 
that was afterward formed when all these separate 
units coalesced. But here, as in all other lands, given 
the time to form new habits of order and economy, 
given a sedentary life in the midst of a sober and hard- 
working people, given a comfortable competence drawn 
from a most fertile soil, a gradual purification of morals 
was sure to result. At the same time, an adventurous 
life had steeled many men for the ceaseless struggles 
they had to face before the final conquest of the country. 
On the other hand, the abandonment in which France 
had so long left them, the habit of living beyond the 
sphere of action and the regulations of a government 
jealous of its authority, bred in the Acadians a spirit of 
independence that would ill consort with the restrictions 
put upon them in after years by the French governors. 
In fact, when, after the treaty of Breda, France took 
firm hold of the administration in Acadia, there arose 
much grumbling and murmuring against a government 



36 FRENCH REGIME. 

that took pleasure in throwing around the people the 
complicated net-work of Old World formalism. Of 
this we find proofs in the correspondence of the gov- 
ernors : M. de Brouillan, in one of his letters, calls the 
Acadians half-republicans. However, these difficulties 
were very rare among them, and were as nothing com- 
pared to the troubles that arose among the sharers of 
authority. 

Necessity had taught the people to govern them- 
selves, to hold meetings, to consult together, to settle 
their differences amicably or according to simple rules 
quite sufficient for their local needs. They had thus 
acquired a habit of liberty and a taste therefor. They 
knew by experience that they could dispense with an 
authority that was only irksome, that did not improve 
their condition, that ensured them no additional security 
in their relations with one another. Hence it was that, 
under English rule, they got rid, as much as possible, 
of official regulations and ruled themselves. 

Certain it is that, in their special situation, better 
results could be hoped for from this method, from the 
laisser faire, than from the vexatious interference of an 
uncontrolled authority. Matters of public interest were 
decided at public meetings ; men worked all together at 
works of public utility, as w r hen they completed a vast 
system of dikes, which were built in so short a time as 
to point to unusual harmony and good-will among the 
workers. Their reward came in an abundance of all that 
could meet their needs and their simple tastes, beyond 
which they had no ambition and were therefore easily satis- 
fied. Nor had they any anxiety about the future of their 
children : the custom had been early established that the 
community was to provide them with all things neces- 



FRENCH REGIME. 37 

sary for a homestead, and a few years sufficed to make 
them as well off as their parents. The good understand- 
ing must, surely, have been remarkable, since, even 
under English rule, there is not on record a single case 
in which the people disagreed in their decisions upon 
matters of general interest; whatever the decision 
might be, it was always, as far as can be gathered, 
unanimous. 

When all these exceptional circumstances are under- 
stood and taken into account, the familiar picture 
of their simplicity of life, morality, abundance, har- 
mony, and social happiness has nothing, it seems, 
that should provoke wonder; the same circumstances 
would, I believe, have brought about elsewhere some- 
what similar results. For a century they were strangers 
to France and Canada; they had formed habits and 
built up traditions that made them a separate people. 
They were Acadians. And, if the increase by immigra- 
tion was almost nil, quite otherwise was it with the 
multiplication of families, since, eighty years later, this 
small nation counted 18,000 souls, * 

From 1690 to 1710 was one uninterrupted series of 
hostilities between New England on the one hand 
and Canada and Acadia on the other, the object being 
either to capture vessels fishing in French waters, or to 
destroy some fort on the badly defined frontier between 
Acadia and Maine. In 1690 Port Royal was taken and 
sacked by Admiral Phips ; M. de Menneval, Governor 
of Acadia, was carried off a prisoner to Boston, together 
with his garrison ; but Phips, too much engrossed with 

* The census of 1714 gives 2,100 
« 1737 " 7,598 

" " " 1717 " 12,500 or thereabouts. 



38 FRENCH REGIME. 

the expedition he was preparing against Quebec, neg- 
lected to establish himself solidly in Port Royal, which 
was, accordingly, soon reoccupied by the French. 

This period, from 1690 to 1710, was probably the 
darkest in the annals of these colonies, and the most dis- 
astrous for British colonization. For twenty years, with- 
out truce or respite, on sea as well as on land, there was. 
in these parts of America, nothing but devastation, 
pillage, ambushes and surprises. Sometimes a fort was 
attacked by France's Indian allies, and, if it was taken, 
the inmates were massacred ; most frequently, some de- 
fenceless settlement was raided by night, and, if any were 
made prisoners, they were held for exchange or ransom. 
By seductive advantages offered to fillibusters and al- 
luring bounties on Indian scalps, the greed of gain was so 
keenly excited that organizations sprang up in the border- 
ing settlements of New England for the sole purpose of 
marauding, plundering and butchery. It was a life of 
danger, often ending in terrible reprisals ; still, bold men 
were never wanting to replace those who disappeared. 
In such conditions, civilized man often surpasses in 
cruelty the most cruel savages ; there were acts of base 
treachery and barbarity that have never been exceeded 
nor perhaps equalled by any savage tribe in America. 
Very great, no doubt, must have been the provocation for 
the English colonists : all the Indians in these parts were 
allied to the French, so that retaliation, if any, had to 
come from the colonists themselves. A violent im- 
pulse born of anger, grief, pecuniary loss and insecurity, 
may have shaped itself, with many, into the misconceived 
idea that adopting the cruel methods of those barbarians 
would inspire such terror, such fear of annihilation, 
that they would relent from their bloody raids. At 



FRENCH REGIME. 39 

the same time it was hard not to make those answerable 
who urged them to their bloody raids ; nevertheless, 
though these barbarous allies were acknowledged to be 
necessary in the struggle between the two nations, both 
of whom made use of them when they could, yet nothing 
could justify the use of their cruel methods and the 
infringement of all the laws of honor. 

This state of affairs could not last long. Acadia was 
too weak to be thus left as a perpetual menace to the 
trade and the security of the New England settlements. 
Driven to extremities by the disasters inflicted on their 
commerce, the Anglo-Americans resolved upon the 
greatest efforts to emerge from a situation that was 
daily becoming intolerable. The final issue was not 
doubtful. The disparity in the numbers was enormous ; 
France was too careless or too busy elsewhere to succor 
her colony ; yet, the conflict was longer and more des- 
perate, successes and reverses more evenly balanced than 
might have been expected. No less than four expedi- 
tions were required before Port Royal was taken, and 
there the intrepid Subercase, powerfully seconded by 
the Baron de Saint-Castin and by other Captains at the 
head of Indian troops, wrought prodigies of valor. The 
first of these expeditions was undertaken by Church, the 
famous u Squaw-killer ; " but, moved by the desire of 
plunder and of easy exploits, he made no serious attack 
on Port Royal, and was satisfied with invading Mines 
and Beaubassin, where he carried off all the cattle he 
could seize, after opening the dikes, burning houses and 
doing all the damage he could. 

A second expedition under Colonel March was much 
more serious. Rhode Island and New Hampshire had 
united with Massachusetts for this decisive onslaught ; 



40 FRENCH REGIME. 

but, after a seige of eleven days, March, repulsed at 
every point, had to re-embark, and, instead of returning 
to Boston, where he dreaded censure, he took refuge at 
Casco. Thence he wrote of his failure to Governor 
Dudley, attributing it to his officers and soldiers, who, 
he said, had refused to second him. Immense was the 
chagrin of Boston ; so little was this result anticipated 
that preparations had actually been made for a pompous 
celebration of the taking of Port Royal. 

Humbled but not discouraged, Governor Dudley, who 
could not resign himself to disband the troops he had 
organized with such fine hopes, sent orders to March to 
keep on board the ships his soldiers, willing or unwill- 
ing, and to return immediately to Port Royal with the 
reinforcement now setting sail. At the same time 
Dudley appointed three commissioners to superintend 
the operations of the siege. March, unable to overcome 
the sadness and dejection to which he was a prey, de- 
clined the honor of commanding this new expedition. 
Wainwright, second in command, had to take charge of 
it ; but, after another siege and a long one, he also re- 
embarked without effecting anything. This was in 
August, 1707. 

Thus far, at least, Port Royal had been revictualled 
and assisted by France, though inadequately. Suber- 
case had been able to satisfy the Indians by some gifts 
and still more by promises. His kindliness to all had 
sufficed to inspire the courage and ardor that were abso- 
lutely necessary in the situation of inferiority in which 
he was left. All the Captains of Indians, d'Amours 
d'Echauffours, Saint Aubin, Belief ontaine, de Saillan, 
Denys de la Ronde, de Saint Castin, de la Tour ; the 
French corsairs, Francis Guyon, Pierre Maisonnat, de 



SURRENDER OF PORT ROYAL. 41 

Morpain, had gathered under him and had helped him 
with a will. With these and the inhabitants he had 
enough men to manoeuvre outside, to harass the enemy 
without weakening his garrison, which numbered only 
about 160 soldiers, three fourths of whom were un- 
disciplined young men picked up on the quays of 
Paris. 

Having heard that a fresh attack was preparing, still 
more formidable than the preceding ones, Subercase re- 
peatedly urged the Home Government to send reinforce- 
ments ; but nothing could rouse the apathy of France's 
rulers. For three long years the colony, destitute of 
everything, subsisted almost entirely on the booty of 
the corsairs. As a crowning misfortune, in 1710 the 
harvest failed, and the corsairs, so numerous the preced- 
ing year, were driven from Acadia by an epidemic ; so, 
when in September a large fleet with 3,400 landing 
forces appeared before Port Royal, there was but one 
voice in the garrison and colony in favor of immediate 
surrender. 

Though fully aware of his weakness and feeling that 
he could not come out once more victorious from a con- 
flict in which all the odds were against him, Subercase 
resolved to tempt fortune, and, without hearkening to 
the proposals of General Nicholson, commander of the 
fleet, he prepared to withstand the enemy. The English, 
on their part, taught circumspection by the unexpected 
and repeated defeats of past years, set to work with 
extreme prudence. Several times they were repulsed or 
had to desist from their investing operations ; but Suber- 
case no longer had a body of troops to sally forth from 
the fortifications and worry the besiegers. The fleet 
had arrived before Port Royal September 24th, and it 



42 SURREISDER OF PORT ROYAL. 

was not till October 12th that the capitulation was 
signed on quite honorable terms, so honorable indeed, that 
Nicholson expressed his regret at having accepted them, 
when he beheld the destitution of the garrison. Pro- 
visions were so scarce that Nicholson had to provide the 
French soldiers with rations before they embarked for 
France. 

Port Royal had become, and this time for good and 
all, an English town ; the destiny of the whole of 
Acadia was soon to be the same. In the course of a 
century Port Royal had gone through more vicissitudes 
than any other American town, more even, than any 
other from its foundation to our own day. It had been 
taken, sacked, destroyed, abandoned, retaken ; and mean- 
while France, seemingly unaware of its importance, un- 
taught by the lessons of experience, unmoved by its 
hazardous position or by the unjust and cruel fate of its 
faithful subjects, never thought of ensuring its per- 
manent possession by making such efforts as were called 
for by the risks and advantages of this stronghold. 

Such criminal neglect might seem astounding, were it 
not repeated elsewhere, and everywhere. This bit of 
exposed territory had only 2,000 inhabitants when the 
provinces of New England alone had 150,000. Was it 
because the sovereigns that governed France, the gov- 
ernors that represented them in Canada or Acadia, did 
not realize the importance of the colonies they owned ? 
Was it because, as has been said, Frenchmen are not 
colonizers ? No ; this is not the true answer. We have 
plenty of documents proving that the governors of these 
provinces generally realized, with great perspicacity, 
the value of these colonies and the way to make them 
prosperous, powerful and useful to the Home Govern- 



BLUNDERS OF FRANCE. 48 

ment. We have also some proof, though rarer, that 
the sovereigns or their ministers saw things in the 
same light. We have likewise proofs that the spirit of 
enterprise, boldness and activity were not at all lacking 
in the French colonist. We know that, in spite of the 
way in which he was forsaken by France, his activity 
had familiarized him with the whole interior of the 
continent, at a time when the English had not yet lost 
sight of the Atlantic coast. But the colonists needed 
backing, at least by numbers ; they needed a helping 
hand from the mother country. In an absolute govern- 
ment, which claims all powers and all initiative, which 
rules and regulates everything, even the peopling of its 
colonies must be initiated by authority. The expression 
of a wish or instructions from the throne would have 
been enough to create an unflagging movement of 
emigration that would have compared favorably with 
the emigration from the British Isles. The entire blame 
lies, I believe, with the throne ; not so much because it did 
not understand the importance of colonizing this country, 
as because of f orgetf ulness and neglect begotten of that 
thoughtlessness and inconstancy that marked all its 
acts. 

" When I compare the result of European wars in the 
last fifty years," wrote M. d'Avaugour in 1663, " and 
the progress that may be made in ten years here, not only 
does my duty oblige me, but it urges me to speak out 

boldly France can, in ten years and with less 

outlay, secure more real power in America than all its 
European wars could win for it." 

" Who can undertake," said Vauban, " anything 
greater and more useful than a colony? Is it not by 
this means, rather than by any other, that one can ob- 



44 BLUNDERS OF FRANCE. 

tain, with all possible justice, aggrandizement and in- 
crease ? " 

And Louis XIV. himself, who for a time seemed to 
take a serious interest in his colonies, entirely con- 
curred in this view, when he so wisely wrote in 167G 
to M. de Champigny, "Intendant" of Canada: " Be 
thoroughly convinced of this maxim, that it is better to 
occupy less territory and to people it entirely, than to 
spread out indefinitely and to have weak colonies at the 
mercy of the slightest accident." 

That was, perhaps, for the great monarch, only a pass- 
ing thought between two pleasures. Successfully to 
carry out these fine projects, France was in need of calm 
and peace ; but, ever carried away by the pride, ambi- 
tion or caprice of her sovereigns, she always lacked the 
rest-fulness that alone would have enabled her to give 
to these designs the sustained attention they demanded. 
She must dazzle, she must have glory, and, assuredly, not 
in those lowly hamlets lost in the forests of America could 
Louis XIV. attain this end. And yet there, more than 
in aught else, was the future of France. True, it was 
slow, plodding work, the fruits of which were far dis- 
tant ; but in return what a rich harvest, what solid 
glory, what lasting greatness was thus cheaply to be 
earned by France ! 

There is no more striking proof of her carelessness 
than the way in which she deserted Acadia. In the 
course of an entire century this province received barely 
two hundred colonists, whereas its dangerous situation 
and its importance would have called for fifty times as 
many. This was less immigration in a century than 
the smallest English colony received in one year. In 
the single summer of 1620 the colony of Virginia wel- 



BLUNDERS OF FRANCE. 45 

corned 1261 colonists, and it already had 600. In 1625 
there came another thousand, and as early as 1646 it 
had a population of 20,000 souls. Before 1640, 298 
ships crowded with immigrants had cast anchor in the 
port of Boston. On the other hand, it is clear that, 
unassisted and unencouraged, immigration must have 
been a negative quantity in a country so helplessly 
exposed as was Acadia. That it possessed natural 
advantages was not enough ; over and above this there 
was needed, at the outset, vigorous encouragement to a 
body of colonists immigrating all together in sufficient 
numbers to ensure their being able to protect them- 
selves, and thus make up by their multitude for the 
insecurity of their position. This province, which 
would thus have been a source of strength to France, 
really became, on the contrary, a cause of weakness, an 
ever menacing danger. Very different, indeed, was 
the reality from the wise maxims which Louis XIV. 
recommended to his Intendant in Canada. 

But what is more inconceivable still, is that, at the 
very time when Acadia was fighting heroic battles 
decisive of its fate, Louis XIV., easily seduced by great 
projects, was seized with a new infatuation for Louisiana 
and the inland regions leading up to the Great Lakes 
and to Canada : a great and noble project in truth, 
which his habitual inconstancy was to reduce to a 
costly chimera, furnishing fuel for jealousy and hasten- 
ing the ruin of his colonial empire. 

If France can find in the study of her history, as she 
undoubtedly can, matter for self-glorification, it is 
surely not in her colonial policy. The wonder is, not 
that her colonies ended in misfortune, but that they 
held out so long against such fearful odds. Courage. 



46 BLUNDERS OF FRANCE. 

energy and well-directed efforts were not lacking in the 
colonists themselves ; this is proved to evidence by their 
struggles, both in the direction of self-development 
and extension of French power, and in the way of resist- 
ance for so long a time and with such marked success 
against an enemy that outnumbered them sixteen to one. 
Here is cause for naught but glorification and astonish- 
ment. The shame of failure falls entirel}- upon that 
unskilful administration, that witty incapacity, that 
proud impotence which stamped the policy of France. 

The national character, in its good qualities as well as 
in its defects, had already become well-nigh fixed, and 
Louis XIV. was its most brilliant expression. Gen- 
erally speaking, the character of a nation is the result of 
apparently insignificant circumstances, scarcely noticed 
when first they appear. Later on, however, and some- 
times much later, they make themselves felt. For a long 
time, and especially during all the middle ages, the most 
salient points of divergence in the respective character- 
istics of the nations of Western Europe were, after all, 
only shades of difference. England differed little from 
France, France from Spain ; all three had acquired the 
germs of liberty, and it was the expansion or contrac- 
tion of that liberty which was to have a dominant influ- 
ence in fixing the special character of each nation, and 
in stamping each with its essential differentiation. 
These distinctive qualities were also to influence the 
future destiny of each nation. 

At that remote period France and England were like 
two streamlets lazily meandering on the same table-land, 
coming near to each other, then winding further apart, 
then winding in again ; their general trend seems the 
same ; are they going to unite ? Perhaps ; but, at any 



BLUNDERS OF FRANCE. 47 

rate, when they have grown by the tribute of many 
affluents into mighty rivers, they will surely empty into 
the same ocean. Yet facts belie this forecast : a very 
slight rise in the land will be enough to change their 
course and make them flow in opposite directions ; one to 
the east, the other to the west ; this one toward one ocean, 
that one toward another. One was to keep on majesti- 
cally and peacefully flowing through rich meadows ; the 
other was to leap wildly through narrow gorges, then 
spread out into a lake, then again narrow into a torrent, 
crossing now enchanting scenery, now desolate burning 
deserts. A little bit of a hill had been the insurmount- 
able wall that had decided their respective fates and the 
flow of their waters. The expansion of the liberties of 
England, the contraction of those of France was that 
little hill that sent them in opposite directions through 
experiences so dissimilar. Had it not been for a seem- 
ing trifle, the course followed by the one might have 
been followed by the other with reversed results. 

While the English nobility shut themselves up in 
their demesnes, thus preserving a certain independence 
in respect of the sovereign, and some interest in consort- 
ing with the people for the conservation and increase of 
their common liberties, in France all the nobles rushed 
to court, drawn thither by royal favor and the fascina- 
tion of pleasure. However insignificant this slender 
historic detail may seem, it prepared France for the 
abandonment of the germs of liberty it then possessed ; 
this was the little hill that altered its course and its 
destiny. 

These men, who had become courtiers in quest of 
honors and favors, athirst for pleasure, held their peace 
before the encroachments of the king. Deprived of its 



48 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

defenders, the people could not withstand the clipping 
of their hard-won privileges. Thus it was that, one 
after another, the conquests of liberty, both for nobles 
and commoners, disappeared. When Louis XIV. 
decided to be his own prime minister ; when, waited 
upon, after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, by the func- 
tionaries of state, and asked to whom they must in 
future apply on questions of public business, he replied, 
much to their astonishment, " To myself," then was 
liberty undone. There remained only the precarious 
splendor of the throne and the doubtful prestige of the 
past, until the day should come when the state would 
be the Pompadour or any other favorite courtesan, 
until, sinking still lower, Louis XV. should be shameless 
enough to say, " After me the deluge." Nor was this 
deluge long delayed ; a deluge of blood, the prelude of 
frequent fruitless efforts and violent reactions, of scenes 
of anger and hatred, glory and humiliation. 

England alone escaped the wreck of her liberties. If 
she was saved from disaster, it was probably not because 
she had acquired, in that seventeenth century, more 
wisdom and maturity than other nations, but because of 
her insular position, because of some insignificant de- 
tails resulting rather from an apparently fortuitous com- 
bination of circumstances than from her own foresight. 
"England," says Macaulay, "escaped from absolutism, 
but she escaped very narrowly." It is well for mankind 
that this exception arose. Those liberties, preserved 
and increased, constitute England's greatness ; her ex- 
ample has set her up as a beacon light to guide the 
nations in the proper channel. 

Viewing the results, men have ascended to the cause 
thereof and traced out the methods that produced them. 



GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 49 

They have imitated England ; they have also imitated 
the nation that sprang from England, built up by her 
on this continent out of suitable elements, conditions, 
tastes and tendencies, in a new land freed from Old 
World ties. Instead of one model now there are two. 
With regard to England, the evolution was the work of 
seeming chance, in answer to the necessities of the 
moment, in order to escape from the ruinous caprice of 
a despot, to satisfy that desire of liberty which we all 
feel more or less ; but by little and little the mists were 
lifted, the consequences, if not of the future, at least of 
the past and the present, were better and better under- 
stood. It soon became evident that the growth of liberty 
must be accompanied by the growth of education, that 
the one was the reason of the other, and that the two, 
working together, were the fountain-head of all the 
material progress which our century enjoys. 

To study the effects of liberty one must not stop at 
abstract theory, but must go on to examine methods and 
facts. Excellent as liberty is in itself, it may be the 
source of many evils. The study of actual methods 
teaches that solid results are obtained only by agitation, 
i. e., by a continual, thoughtful, calm effort leaning on 
public opinion which it first creates, advancing method- 
ically step by step, by legitimate means on what we 
might call an easy upward gradient. One reform, one 
new franchise, becomes a solid and permanent acquisi- 
tion, as well as a step to other reforms. It is a process 
of building up and consolidating rather than of de- 
struction. 

This method, more even than the liberty it won, is 
what gives to British institutions that progressive sta- 
bility which all the world admires. The most important 



50 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

effect of this method is the moulding of the nation's 
character. It is this " broadening from precedent to 
precedent " that has imparted to the English character 
that calmness, moderation, firmness and dignity which 
insure its superiority in great undertakings and in its 
differences with other nations. It is this, too, that has 
made respect for law and authority almost an instinct 
with Englishmen. What has been acquired by dint of 
patient effort is loved and revered ; nor are such con- 
quests any longer open to attack. Rulers themselves 
will respect what is only one step more, one slight sac- 
rifice to the will of the nation freely expressed by its- 
legitimate representatives. 

However tardy was sometimes the advent of long- 
looked-for reforms, no one ever dreamt of imposing 
them by force against the will of the majority, when 
experience showed that constitutional agitation and ar- 
gument gave the best chance of success and the most 
solid guarantees, provided one were on the side of right 
and justice. Under these circumstances it was to be 
expected that the debates of contending parties would 
necessarily be stamped with calmness and dignity, which 
were, besides, conducive to success. 

One of the results of this well-ordered march from 
liberty to liberty, from reform to reform, was that parties 
were generally separated only by shades of difference ; 
essential harmony was rarely marred. When a scarcely 
perceptible line of demarcation parts us from an adversary, 
it is possible to come to an understanding with him. 
The separation was, so to speak, a movable fence that 
might be shoved back and forth. Instead of living in two 
distinct camps, quite estranged from one another, there 
was a certain amount of intercourse, proposals and con- 



GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 51 

cessions were in order. Self-possession, moderation, 
peaceful and courteous discussion were obviously called 
for in order to husband or to increase one's strength. 
The distance between one party and the other was some- 
times so slight that a little cautious diplomacy was often 
enough to secure either consent or a majority. 

Because she was deprived of these liberties and thrown 
violently backward, France rushed into revolution. Not 
being allowed legitimate freedom of evolution, she went 
into revolution, and overthrew law and order. Perhaps 
it was her only way out of the chaos and ruin that 
threatened her. When Louis XIV. confiscated the 
liberties of France and thus threw her back, he little 
dreamt that he was preparing the ruin of his dynasty 
and the death of his second successor. He had himself 
charged the mine that was to blow up his throne. He 
was called great because he knew how to dazzle ; but, 
if greatness be measured by the solidity of one's struct- 
ures and the clear view of consequences, he was very 
small and very fatal to his country. 

This confiscation of the liberties of France is responsible 
for the momentous events of which she has since been 
the scene, and these events in their turn have intensified 
both her own native defects and those which she shared 
with other nations governed as she was. Had she slowly 
developed along the lines of freedom, she would, by the 
very force of circumstances, have not only kept her own 
good qualities, but also acquired most of those which 
have accrued to England. For want of this wisdom, 
she has rushed into a series of revolutions of which the 
end is probably not yet. Freedom forced upon people 
by bloodshed cannot be true freedom ; it will always be 
odious to many and therefore of uncertain tenure. If 



52 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

imposed by revolution, the same means will be employed 
to destroy it ; hence contempt of law and of one's 
adversaries, rancor, injustices, conspiracies ; hence a 
special tendency of the national character that stiffens 
into a fixed habit of mind. Between the man that 
desires a republic and the man that desires a return to 
the old order of things yawns a gulf that is very hard to 
bridge. They have no points of contact ; even socially, 
they are strangers, and if they have any knowledge of 
each other, it will be mostly founded on slander. Their 
natural weapons will be violence and insult. 

Thus the slight divergences of three or four centuries 
ago have become strong contrasts through the choice of 
different methods. This we realize to-day; but our 
forefathers did not. It was not in view of an ideal 
dream or according to a preconceived plan that liberty 
gradually was introduced into England. Men acted 
merely according to the exigencies of the moment in 
order to supply fresh wants. Yet experience has set 
great store by these liberties thus acquired. People 
were gradually educated up to an intelligent compre- 
hension of what is called the theory of social evolution, 
a theory which, in France, has recently been styled oppor- 
tunism. Thus it is that we are ever advancing toward 
new horizons that should be studied and, if possible, 
foreseen ; thus it is that events are ever occurring the 
tendency and ultimate significance of which we cannot 
so much as conjecture. 

Whilst England, by her steady progress in the widen- 
ing field of liberty, grew greater and greater, France, 
tending towards absolutism, was, amidst bursts of daz- 
zling glory, gradually losing as much as her rival gained. 
The time came when the latter sought not only to re- 



GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 53 

cover what she had lost, what it had cost England three 
hundred years to maintain and develop, but also to take 
a forward leap of several centuries. Then a useful 
experience proved that the social edifice has no stability 
unless it be built up slowly, stone upon stone, with 
plumb-line and cement carefully applied to each. 
When, however, the edifice has been raised without 
these precautions, and consequently threatens to fall, it 
may be necessary to pull it down. 

All the teachings of the past lead to the belief that 
England followed the true, the better course. But, in 
such matters, error is always possible, because, to the 
immediate and visible results, must be added others 
that are invisible and distant, and sometimes very dif- 
ferent from those which seem startlingly clear. We are 
witnesses, on the one hand, of the first consequences of 
evolution ; on the other, of revolution ; or rather of 
slow evolution and rapid evolution. For this century, 
at least, the advantage is clearly on the side of slow 
evolution. But who can foretell with certainty the 
remote consequences in future ages? It is the secret of 
Providence. In all social questions this principle holds : 
immediate or proximate results may be very different 
from remote consequences. The human mind is, after 
all, despairingly limited. It often happens that what 
is practical wisdom in the long run comes from reputed 
fools. Statues are erected in honor of those who have 
foreseen immediate or proximate effects. Those who 
have had intuitions of more distant results are some- 
times locked up. 

It may be for the interest of mankind at large that 
nations work out their destinies in various ways. Hu- 
man progress is a congeries of acquired experiences. 



54 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

The doings of one people are noted by another, matured, 
weighed, accepted or rejected entirely or partially ; the 
residuum of good becomes the property of the civilized 
world. 

One thing seems quite certain : England has won the 
first game. Her methods of success have been studied ; 
they have been and still are useful to all nations. Shall 
she lose the next innings ? It is the secret of the future, 
the secret which statesmen are striving to discover. 
All nations may have special hopes and consoling fore- 
casts ; but, at any rate, it is undeniable that England, by 
opening up the path, has got a start that she may very 
well be proud of. Some may question if her advance 
has not been too slow, if the habits thus formed may 
not be some day a source of danger. For her that slow- 
ness was a necessity ; she was feeling her way from the 
known to the unknown. Now that the territory is 
mostly mapped out, it is easy for other nations to take a 
short cut and suppress some of the old, painful, round- 
about tramping. But England's traditional wisdom 
gives us every reason to trust she will always be willing 
to move on in time to avoid any dangers that may 
threaten her. 

Highly as I value the good points which liberty and 
the struggle therefor have brought out in the institu- 
tions and character of England, I am far from admiring 
everything English or blaming everything French. 
The scope of this work does not admit of insisting on 
the defects of the picture. Else I might point to a 
series of shameful acts very often far worse than the worst 
deeds of France. Taking all in all, not only was Eng- 
land's seventeenth century no better than the same period 
in France ; but, in many respects, it was worse than the 



GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 55 

eighteenth in France. Nevertheless, in the midst of her 
deepest humiliations England was collecting materials 
for future greatness. If deeds of shame were, in a 
sense, an outcome of the struggle for liberty, it was the 
stubbornness and encroachments of the crown that pro- 
voked them; they were the offspring of absolutism and 
of those who sacrificed to it the interests of the nation, 
nor can they be fathered on the valiant defenders of 
liberty. Courage and disinterestedness were needed to 
expose one's self to the royal displeasure, to persecu- 
tions, to ruin, to decapitation. No wonder most of the 
high functionaries sacrificed, when the sacrifice was an 
essential condition, honor, principles and humanity in 
order to preserve or obtain royal favors. Those men, 
who seem to us bereft of all honorable feeling, might 
have been, under other circumstances, the ornament of 
their race ; in fact their only fault, perhaps, was rating 
ambition above virtue. 

In this world of ours there is no such thing as un- 
mixed good. The purest joys are the reward of suffer- 
ing. This is true of liberty, and still more true of the 
struggle to obtain and preserve it. This struggle was 
necessary, and the defections, treachery and crime were 
unavoidable. Would liberty have given to England 
such favorable results, had it been acquired without 
resistance ? Would it be as highly valued ? Would it 
have taken on that stability which has hitherto secured 
it from all vicissitudes ? Probably not. 

So long as England was in the painful period of 
incubation, so long as the nations of Europe could see 
only the evils accompanying those conflicts for liberty, 
it was perhaps impossible for them to grasp the good 
result that was to follow. The very bitterness of the 



56 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

contest for freedom must necessarily have produced 
special crimes from which the undisputed absolutism of 
the French monarchy was exempt. The fruits of liberty 
could not be tasted and appreciated until the conflict 
had cooled down by the final triumph of Parliamentary 
supremacy. No wonder, then, that Louis XIV., or even 
the French nobility, seeing contemporary facts, judged 
that the absolute rule of the sovereign was the only 
means of ensuring unity of action, stability, order, har- 
mony and the elements of greatness. What they wit- 
nessed in their own day must have convinced them that 
they were right. Very likely they saw, in those intes- 
tine struggles, only the attempt of a few to gratify their 
passions or further their own interests at the expense of 
the nation's weal. Could they then descry the far-off 
effects of this liberty on the national character, effects 
that were only as yet dimly outlined in a maze of strik- 
ing disadvantages ? So long as France was in the 
hands of a sovereign like Louis XIV., who dazzled her 
by his greatness, she could delude herself with the 
fancy that things would remain ever thus. It needed 
the follies of the Regency and of Louis XV. ; it needed 
ruin and humiliation to rouse her from her torpor, to 
make her realize that she was at the mercy of the in- 
frequent virtues and very frequent vices of her kings. 
France has had many severe lessons. Will she profit 
by them ? We must hope so. Will she get back what 
she has lost? This again we may hope for: one or two 
centuries are of small account in the life of a nation. 
We may hope that she will at length reach a state of 
equilibrium, and, having secured that, will advance with 
constant and measured steps. She will always be, we 
hope, great in her genius, in her activity of mind, in 



GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 57 

noble and generous ideas, in science, in the love of the 
beautiful. But, what she will never regain is the high 
place she has lost, the part she once played in the civil- 
izing and peopling of the globe. If France has declined 
somewhat, or rather if she has not advanced as much as 
was to be expected ; if she be destined to decline still more, 
she can trace this decline to her want of expansion, to her 
lack of colonies. When France and England were con- 
tending for the possession of North America, the latter 
had only thirteen millions of inhabitants, whereas the 
former had twenty-seven millions. Look at the situation 
to-day. The United Kingdom has thirty-seven millions, 
France only thirty-eight millions, while in North 
America alone there are almost seventy millions of men 
that speak the language and are impregnated with the 
ideas and special characteristics of Britain. How shall 
it be in one, two or three centuries, when England will 
have developed mighty empires in the vast colonies 
under her sway ? It matters little that these colonies 
should become independent of the mother country; 
even when her daughters leave her, their influence and 
prestige is none the less traceable to their fruitful 
parent. 

Yet, not to the unfruitfulness of the French race is 
this contrast to be attributed. Any doubt on this ques- 
tion would be set aside by the prodigious expansion of 
the Canadians and Acadians, an expansion the only 
equal of which perhaps is that of the Boers. 

When European governments, in the last two cen- 
turies, strove to found colonies, they did not, as far as 
we can judge, reckon with this increase and spread 
of population. They were naturally inclined to think 
their colonizing movements would weaken the mother 



58 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

country. They simply yielded to the pressure of com- 
mercial interest. But experience has since proved that 
the increase of population was largely due to increased 
space and to the elbow-room thus afforded. Here, again, 
is one of those far-off consequences, invisible to one 
generation and yet visible to another, to which I alluded 
a moment ago. 

It is highly probable that British statesmen did not 
foresee, any better than those of France, the future of 
their colonies. Neither did they create and develop 
these colonies according to a set plan and on fixed prin- 
ciples, foreseeing, arranging and maturing everything. 
The contrary of all this would be nearer the truth. In 
this respect the English government was not more 
active, nor more provident than the French. True, 
British immigration was considerable from the outset ; 
but it was mostly all due to private initiative. As for 
the Puritans and the Quakers, it was an asylum from 
intolerance. They wanted and hoped to govern them- 
selves, or at least to be free from hindrances to freedom 
of conscience. France never held out similar hopes to 
the Huguenots. All other immigrants were either 
traders or colonists pure and simple. 

While the pernicious influence of the French court 
was weakening the nobility, in England the gentry and 
the rich merchants were eager for distant enterprises. 
In this latter country it was enough to let that private 
initiative have its way which in France was excluded 
and paralyzed by the habit of waiting in all things for 
the orders and regulations of royalty. Had the Hugue- 
nots been allowed the same freedom of action as the 
Puritans, they would have been only too glad to set up 
for themselves outside of France in her colonies ; so 



GEOWTH OF LIBEKTY. 59 

would the religious orders ; but, for the latter as well 
as for the former, it was feared that they might acquire 
too much independence and power. Thus, between 
inaction on the one hand and obstacles on the other, the 
colonies were left to struggle on in their impotent way. 
I am not aware that the English Government made 
more efforts at the outset for the peopling of her colo- 
nies than France did. The obstacles the latter opposed 
to the Huguenots the former also opposed to the Puri- 
tans ; but — here comes in an important difference, on 
which perhaps depended the fate of the English colonies 
— England yielded to entreaties, and less than a century 
later that flourishing colony of the Puritans numbered 
75,000 souls, four times the entire population of New 
France. So true is it that the fate of empires frequently 
turns on apparently insignificant events. 

Nor did England govern her colonies much better 
than France did hers. Like France, England granted 
ridiculous charters which handed over and confiscated 
vast domains, ill-defined charters which annulled each 
other or which were annulled according to caprice. 
Nor, again, were the British immigrants any better than 
the French. Quite the contrary: when France under- 
took to send colonists, she was too fastidious, while 
England was perhaps not sufficiently painstaking in her 
choice. 

Here the Puritans are not included : they were not 
sent to the colonies ; having left England, they had taken 
refuge in Holland, and they succeeded in effecting a co- 
lonial settlement in America only by dint of begging for 
permission to do so. Their motives were of the most 
exalted kind. Most praiseworthy were the morals of 
those families seeking an asylum where they might live 



60 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

according to their convictions. They sought neither 
riches nor pleasure, nor the satisfactions of vanity and 
ambition ; yet they found, together with the asylum 
they had desired, all that frugality, orderliness, economy 
and intelligence could procure. It was this undesired 
emigration that turned out best for the strength of 
England. 

Not so with the colony of Virginia. At first picked 
families were sent thither ; but soon recruits came from 
all quarters, and immigration, lapsing into a commercial 
venture, gradually deteriorated till it became altogether 
bad. High bounties made the recruiting of clerks and 
servants for the great colonizing companies a matter of 
money grabbing. Boys of 14 and 15 and even sickly 
youths, says Rameau,* were kidnapped from sea-ports ; 
agents embarked all the vagabonds and jail-birds that 
felt the need of going far away from places where tliev 
were too well known. A still more revolting spectacle 
on the shores of the New World was the sale of con- 
tracts which were often wholly fictitious. In truth this 
was the organizing of a white slave trade with slavery 
for a term of years ; from that to the negro slave trade 
with indefinite slavery was only a step, and that step 
was soon taken. 

" As early as 1619," says Hildreth, "1,200 immigrants 
came to Virginia ; among them were 100 vagabonds or 
old offenders, who were sold like the rest, and also 20 
negroes, who were brought thither and sold by a certain 
Dutch captain ; these were the first." 

The British Government, taking the hint thus given, 
saw its way to getting rid of all its prisoners : trans- 
portation, in fact, saved the expenses of their mainte- 

* Quoting Carlier and Bancroft. 






GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 61 

nance at home, while the sale of their services actually 
brought in money. These living consignments became 
frequent ; nor was the transportation confined to crim- 
inals ; it was soon extended to political prisoners, and 
thus the civil dissensions of England became a fruitful 
source of English emigration to Virginia, and afterward 
gradually to the other colonies, even to New England, 

" This traffic in men of British race became so com- 
mon * that not only the Scotch who had been made 
prisoners at the battle of Dunbar, were shipped to 
America to be there made slaves, but also the royalists 
that fell into the power of the Parliamentary party at 
the battle of Worcester, as well as the leaders of the 
revolt of Penruddor were embarked for the colonies. 
In Ireland the transportations of Irish Catholics were 
numerous and frequent, and accompanied with such 
cruel treatment as to be scarcely better than the atroci- 
ties of the African slave trade. In 1685 nearly a 
thousand prisoners, compromised in the rebellion of 
Monmouth, were condemned to deportation, and forth- 
with many of the men that were influential at Court 
wrangled over this prey as over a most profitable mer- 
chandise." 

Thus the British Government had but a small share 
in the peopling of the colonies, and this share is per- 
haps not very creditable. However, for one reason or 
another, the blunders of England were not so grave as 
those of France, with this further difference that the 
very blunders of England became ultimately profitable. 
Perhaps it was better to be less exacting in the choice 
of emigrants and to fill up the colonies than to remain 
inactive and especially to hinder emigration. Those 

* Quoting Carlier and Bancroft. 



62 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

criminals must live somewhere, and it may have been 
preferable to suffer them to settle in a new country, 
where, finding more numerous and varied advantages, 
they might become moral and prosperous subjects. The 
original population was moral and numerous enough to 
absorb without too much harm to itself those outcasts of 
society. Nevertheless, if the facts themselves are ex- 
cusable, the method of operation was not so : nothing 
can excuse the British Government for having, not only 
tolerated, but originated that hateful white slave trade 
which was soon to issue in the regular negro slave trade 
and to taint in their very fountain-head the really ex- 
cellent qualities of an infant nation. 

France made another mistake in not colonizing, as 
she might have done, the Atlantic coast from Virginia 
northward, or at least a considerable portion of that 
coast, so as to secure a greater variety of climate. Trade 
Wis, of course, the motive power at the time the colonies 
were founded. France made the first choice, and, as re- 
gards the fur trade and the fisheries, that choice must 
have been considered, at least for the first half century, 
the best. Similarly, it was the gold craze that first led 
multitudes to California in 1849 ; yet, in the long run, 
the soil and the climate were found to be greater sources 
of prosperity than the richest mines. This climatic 
blunder may have contributed more than anything else 
to keep France in a state of great numerical inferiority in 
America. People did not care to emigrate to Acadia 
because it was too much exposed to attacks, nor to 
Canada because the climate was too severe or not suf- 
ficiently varied. Probably it was to repair this mistake 
that Louis XIV. had conceived the project of colonizing 
.the Illinois country and the Upper Mississsipi ; but it 






GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 63 

was then too late. Voltaire gave expression to this idea, 
when, with his witty flippancy, he said that, after all, 
France was giving up " only a few acres of snow." 

It has become the fashion to say that the Frenchman is 
no colonizer. No doubt he has now no great reputation 
in that line ; but the reason is that France has no longer 
a single colony favorably situated as a home for the white 
race. The Frenchman is no longer a colonizer, because, 
amid the turmoil of revolutions and counter-revolutions, 
amid constant struggles with his European neighbors, he 
never has had leisure to take a serious interest in his 
colonies. But I cannot admit that the Frenchman, in the 
seventeenth or eighteenth century, was not quite as 
good at colonizing as the Englishman, the Spaniard or 
the Dutchman. The only things that handicapped the 
Frenchman were his paternalism in government and the 
disadvantages of his position in Europe. As to French- 
men themselves, what they achieved here on American 
soil seems utterly to contradict the assertion that they 
did not know how to colonize. 

Having explained their numerical inferiority by causes 
that do not imply an absence of the colonizing spirit, I find 
that those who settled in Canada gave proofs of physical 
aptitude, of energy, of skill, of courage, which, in many 
respects, seem superior to anything of the sort the 
British colonists could show. Else, how could the 
French have held their own during a century and a half 
against an enemy that outnumbered them sixteen to 
one ? What wonderful achievements would have been 
theirs, had they been, I will not say sixteen times as 
numerous as the English, but fairly matched in point of 
numbers ? Were they not singularly gifted, those men 
who penetrated into the interior of the continent and 



64 GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

founded settlements and outposts in countries that were 
as yet unknown to the American colonist ? The settle- 
ments of Frontenac, Detroit, Green Bay, Vincennes, and 
other colonies in Illinois date back as far as 1680. So 
great was the activity and boldness of the inhabitants of 
Detroit that they offered to throw three thousand col- 
onists into the adjoining territory, so as to command the 
whole interior of the continent, provided the French 
Government would fill up the void by encouraging a 
strong emigration to Canada. 

Forsaken by the mother country, without direction or 
assistance, the colonists faced the difficulties of their posi- 
tion with a courage and an intelligence that were seldom 
at fault. By the superiority of their methods and by their 
wise forecasts they acquired a great ascendancy over the 
minds of the Indians. It is remarkable that the French 
never had to fight the Indians of the countries they 
occupied, nay, that they made them their faithful allies 
even in the most critical junctures. Everybody knows 
that it fared quite otherwise with the British colonies. 
Whether through acts of injustice, or haughty and arbi- 
trary measures, or for some other cause, they did not 
know how to make friends of the Indians : hence terri- 
ble deeds of vengeance provoking the British settlers to 
exterminate the savage in self-defence against dangers 
that they had not the wisdom to avert. 

" In fine," says Rameau, " the point in which the 
intelligence of the French colonists shone forth with 
especial brilliancy was their keen appreciation of topog- 
raphy and of their local environment, of which they 
unfailingly made an excellent use. This it was that 
enabled them to maintain the defensive and to succeed 
in attack. Their quickness and sureness in seizing the 



GROWTH OF LIBERTY. 65 

main point, their skill in planning, their promptness in 
deciding, their energy in acting were no whit inferior 
to their robustness of constitution, suppleness of body, 
sobriety and austerity of habit." 

When finally they succumbed, it was only because 
they seemed exhausted by their victories after having 
for a long time and repeatedly gained advantages that 
made the ultimate result doubtful. When Port Royal 
fell, it had twice resisted an army that was more 
numerous than the entire population of Acadia. And, 
when Canada in its turn was forced to yield to the in- 
vader, it had only five or six thousand soldiers left to 
withstand the sixty thousand of the enemy. Canada 
had then but sixty thousand souls, whereas the British 
provinces had more than a million. 

I have not the slightest wish to depreciate the Eng- 
glish colonists, nor to extol unduly the French, nor even 
to institute comparisons ; both had their good qualities 
and their defects, rather difficult to estimate satisfac- 
torily ; but, to any one who will put away from him 
the glamour of success and view the question on its 
merits, it will appear evident that, minor differences 
apart, the Frenchman was, at that time, as good a 
colonizer as any other European. The failure of French 
colonization is traceable entirely to the faults I have 
pointed out, all of which are to be imputed to the Home 

Government and to an untoward combination of events. 
5 



66 PORT ROYAL AFTER ITS SURRENDER. 



CHAPTER II. 

Surrender of Port Royal, Oct. 13th, 1710 — Articles of the capitula- 
tion — Cession of Port Royal with the territory " within cannon- 
shot " — Vetch named governor of the place — Five inhabitants of 
Port Royal made prisoners — The garrison decimated by sickness 
— Saint Castin comes with 42 Abenakis to direct operations 
against the fort — Battle of "Bloody Creek" — Port Royal 
besieged — The Acadians of the ceded territory withdraw — The 
garrison is reinforced and the projected siege is abandoned. 



The surrender of Port Royal to Nicholson by de 
Subercase was signed Oct. 13th, 1710. He had resisted 
most heroically for nineteen days, and merited no less 
honor by his surrender than he had done in the two 
preceding sieges by repelling the enemy. The struggle 
was hopeless and surrounded with circumstances which 
would induce even the bravest to withhold making any 
effort. Alone with a few chosen officers, lie withstood 
the general call for an immediate surrender. It was 
difficult to impose his will and to revive men's courage 
when there was no hope of success; when to want, to 
privation, to the superior strength of the enemy, to the 
uselessness of his repeated efforts, was added a still 
graver circumstance, complete abandonment by the Home 
Government. There was room for no feeling but dis- 
couragement, when Subercase displayed such energy 
and skill that he restored their drooping spirits. His 
constancy won for him the admiration of his enemies 



POET ROYAL AFTER ITS SURREY DEE. 67 

together with most honorable conditions of surrender, 
which were carried out by the English General with 
great fidelity. 

The articles of the capitulation referred only to Port 
Royal and the dependent territory within cannon-shot 
thereof. To be brief I omit the articles of the capitula- 
tion which relate to the garrison, and restrict my atten- 
tion to what concerned the inhabitants of the ceded 
territory, for there is no question at all of the rest of 
Acadia. 

Article V. " That the inhabitants within cannon- 
shot of Port Royal shall remain upon their estates, with 
their corn, cattle and furniture, during two years, in 
case they are not desirous to go before, they taking the 
oath of allegiance and fidelity to Her Sacred Majesty 
of Great Britain." 

In a memorandum accompanying the articles of the 
capitulation, Gen. Nicholson declares that " within can- 
non-shot " ought to be understood to be " three English 
miles around this fort." The number of persons com- 
prised within this space according to a list presented to 
the General was 481. 

To have a correct view of the situation we should not 
lose sight of the fact that this capitulation was limited 
only to Port Royal and the country comprised within 
a radius of three miles from the fort. The inhabitants 
of this district had two years at most allowed them to 
pass over to the French territory with all their mov- 
able goods ; but, pending their decision thereupon, they 
were to take the oath of allegiance and fealty ; which 
they did. We find nowhere the terms of this oath, but 
we suppose it must have been very carefully worded* 
in order to make sure that, in the meantime, thev would 



68 POUT ROYAL AFTER ITS SURRENDER. 

do nothing against the peace and the interest of the 
English government, until their final decision to remain 
or depart within two years. The circumstances them- 
selves preclude any other interpretation. We should 
not forget that whatever was outside this three-mile 
radius remained meanwhile French territory ; it is well 
also to remark that the war between the two nations 
continued for nearly three years until the treaty of 
Utrecht. A clear view of these facts is necessary for the 
better understanding of what follows, and for avoiding 
the confusion into which so many historians have here- 
tofore fallen. 

After the departure of the French garrison, Nichol- 
son reimbarked with his troops on the 28th of October, 
leaving in the fort, as Lieutenant-governor, Colonel 
Vetch, with about 450 soldiers. From Boston Nicholson 
set out for London, where he succeeded in organizing an 
expedition for the conquest of Canada by land and sea ; 
he himself had the command of the troops who were 
to operate on Montreal through Lake Champlain; but, 
owing to the unskilfulness of Admiral Walker, the 
fleet suffered grievous disaster opposite the He aux 
CEufs, and so the expedition was abandoned. 

During this time, desertions, but, still more, sickness, 
reduced so greatly the Annapolis (Port Royal) garrison 
that, according to an eye-witness, there remained only 
a hundred able-bodied soldiers at the end of the follow- 
ing June. 

With the enemy in such a plight, it became easy 
enough, for the Acadians who were outside the limits 
comprised in the capitulation, to engage in hostilities and 
even to seize upon the fort. Here was an excellent and 
easy opportunity for retaliation. This they signified to 



PORT ROYAL AFTER ITS SURRENDER. 69 

de St. Castin who had previously been named Lieutenant 
of the King of France in this district. The movement 
was sufficiently apparent to make the governor of the 
garrison anxious, and often detachments of his troops 
ventured abroad in order to watch the manoeuvres of 
the people both within and without the bounding circle. 
In one of these excursions two deserters of the garrison, 
one being a certain Abraham Gaudet of Beaubassin, 
and three half-breeds, strangers to the place, captured 
the commissary of the garrison whom, however, they 
released, for a small ransom. The governor, thinking 
that there had been connivance between these men and 
some inhabitants of Annapolis, arrested Wm. Bourgeois, 
Peter Leblanc and John Comeau of Annapolis as well 
as Germain Bourgeois of Beaubassin and Francis 
Brassard of Chipody, who were passing through Anna- 
polis. We have no account of what may have been the 
result of their trial. * 

Saint Castin, whose warlike humor was never at 
rest so long as there were blows to be given or received, 
was easily prevailed upon to come and take part in the 
struggle which the Acadians up the river were prepar- 
ing to have with the English. With forty-two Abenakis 
of the Penobscot river he succeeded in crossing the Bay 
of Fundy and by his stealthy march escaped even the 
suspicion of the garrison. In one of their usual sallies, 

*Haliburton gives quite a different version from that of Murdoch. 
According to the former these arrests were intended to keep these men as 
hostages, and by means of threats to prevent those who were not included 
in the capitulation from committing any hostile act. " This hostile disposi- 
tion of the French settlers," says he, " induced the officer commanding at 
Port Royal to apprehend the priest and five of the most respectable 
inhabitants of the district as hostages for the good behaviour of their 
countrymen, who were informed that, upon similar attempt, these prisoners 
should suffer military execution." 



70 PORT ROYAL AFTER ITS SURRENDER. 

eighty men of the garrison under the command of Captain 
Pigeon advanced as far as twelve miles from the fort, 
intending to surprise some Indian warriors who, by their 
threats, were preventing the inhabitants of Annapolis 
from furnishing the wood necessary to the fortifications. 
Saint Castin, who was watching the movements of this 
troop, surprised them in a place ever since called Bloody 
Creek. Thirty soldiers and officers were killed and 
the rest made prisoners. 

The position of the garrison was becoming critical, if 
it be true, which, however, leaves room for doubt, that, 
before this encounter, there remained only a hundred 
soldiers able to bear arms. This event was unfortunate 
as are all those that result from war ; but it cannot be 
judged otherwise than as legitimate warfare, since the 
action took place twelve miles from Annapolis and nine 
miles outside the territory ceded by the capitulation. 
The successful combatants were French subjects on 
French territory ; it was in time of war and moreover 
an act of self-defence against their assailants. Some 
writers, forgetting the terms of the capitulation, speak 
of this affair as if at that time the whole of Acadia had 
been ceded, and as if these men had been guilty of 
treachery. This is clearly a mistake. 

During this time Abbe* Gaulin, parish priest of Mines, 
tried to organize an expedition against Annapolis. He 
succeeded in getting together two hundred men, whom 
he intrusted to Saint Castin. Annapolis was invested 
for the purpose of attacking the fort, when the ammuni- 
tion and cannons, which they expected from New- 
foundland, should arrive ; but, as this help did not 
come, and as, on other hand, the garrison received a 
reinforcement, they gave up their project and dispersed. 



POET EOYAL AFTER ITS SURRENDER. 71 

Before investing Annapolis, writes Murdoch, "All the 
inhabitants withdrew out of cannon-shot from the fort, 
and they also transported their cattle up the river. 
Those of the banlieue (within cannon-shot) intimated 
to the governor that he had violated the articles of the 
capitulation to their prejudice, and that they were 
thereby freed from the oaths they had taken not to bear 
arms ; after which they joined their compatriots in 
blockading the Fort." 

I have much respect for this author, whom I look 
upon as a sure guide in all questions of fact : yet I must 
say I have nowhere found the confirmation of the last 
part of this citation. Was it simply an inference from 
the declaration that precedes it ? I think so. Though 
not a strictly logical inference, it might be justifiable. 
In what did the governor violate the articles of the 
capitulation ? I do not know, and strong reasons would 
be required to justify such conduct. The time was 
likewise badly chosen to take advantage of any viola- 
tion whatever, and the circumstances give rise to a seri- 
ous suspicion about the fairness of these reasons. 

Nevertheless, for want of precise information on the 
nature and gravity of these reasons, we can perhaps 
supply more or less what is wanting by a document 
which has an intimate connection with the question, and 
which makes us see, as far as we can judge by the ac- 
count of one side only, what was the fate reserved for 
the Acadians by Governor Vetch. Some months before 
this incident the inhabitants residing within the limits 
of the territory comprised in the capitulation sent to 
the Governor of Canada, M. de Vaudreuil, by M. de 
Clignancourt, the following letter : 

" As Tour goodness extends over all those who, being subjects of 



72 PORT ROYAL AFTER ITS SURRENDER. 

His Majesty, have recourse to you to relieve them in their misery, we 
pray you will vouchsafe us your assistance to withdrav) ourselves 
from this country. . . . M. de Clignancourt will tell you better than 
we can do by a letter, the harsh manner in which Governor Vetch 
treats us, keeping us like negroes, and wishing to persuade us that 
we are under great obligation to him for not treating us much worse, 
being able, he says, to do so with justice, and without having room 
to complain of it. We have given to M. de Clignancourt copies of three 
ordinances which M. Vetch has issued. "We pray you, sir, to have 
regard to our misery, and to honor us with your letter for our conso- 
lation, expecting that you may furnish the necessary assistance for 
our retiring from this unhappy country." 



TREATY OF UTRECHT. 73 



CHAPTER III. 

Treaty of Utrecht— Cession of Acadia— Clauses of the treaty and 
letter of Queen Anne — Lieutenant-Governor Vetch opposes the 
departure of the Acadians — Arrival of Governor Nicholson — MM. 
de la Ronde and Pinsens at Port Royal to remove obstacles to 
their departure — Referred to the Queen — Subterfuges — Char- 
acter of Nicholson and of Vetch — Compilation of the archives 
of Nova Scotia — Artifices of the Compiler, his partiality, etc., 
etc. 

The war between France and England was at last 
terminated, and, April 13, 1713, at Utrecht, was signed 
the treaty of peace which definitively ceded Acadia to 
England. Nothing in this treaty defined the extent 
and limits of the country which France ceded, but these 
were to be determined, later on, by a commission to be 
appointed by the two Crowns. Pending this decision, 
France, by the terms of the treaty, ceded : " All of 
Nova Scotia or Acadia comprised in its ancient limits, 
as also the city of Port Royal." It was, as may be 
seen, difficult to make such a badly worded declaration 
the basis of a mutual understanding. What Acadia 
was, what Nova Scotia had been or then was, had never 
been defined with precision ; but the question, already 
so knotty, was still more stupidly complicated by this 
additional clause, " as also the city of Port Royal," as 
if Acadia or Nova Scotia composed only one part of 
the peninsula to which the treaty, by extension, added 
on Port Royal. This could not be the intention of the 



l4 TREATY OF UTRECHT. 

parties, since Port Royal was essentially a part of 
Acadia, since it had been its cradle and the seat of 
government for a whole century. It was a gross error, 
so gross that it could not be invoked or maintained as 
far as Port Royal was concerned ; but the insertion of 
this additional clause still left in the mind the vague 
idea that Acadia or Nova Scotia could at most be under- 
stood only of the peninsula. These difficulties were to 
be resolved fifty years later by force of arms. 

Article XIV. of the treaty of Utrecht, which defined 
the situation of the Acadians is couched in these terms : 

11 It is expressly provided that in all the said places and colonies to 
be yielded and restored by the Most Christian King in pursuance of 
this treaty, the subjects of the said King may have liberty to remove 
themselves within a year to any other place, as they shall think fit, 
with all their movable effects. But those who are willing to remain 
here, and to be subjects to the kingdom of Great Britain, are to enjoy 
the free exercise of their religion according to the usage of the 
Church of Rome as far as the laws of Great Britain do allow the 
same." 

The better to define this situation, but still more to 
please the king of France, in return for some of the 
latter's acts of kindness to his Protestant subjects, 
Queen Anne agreed to relieve the Acadians from the 
rigor of the terms of the treaty. The new terms are 
contained in her letter to Governor Nicholson, dated 
June 23, 1713 : 

" To our trusty and well-beloved Francis Nicholson, Governor of 
our Province of Nova Scotia or Acadia, etc., etc. 

" Whereas our good brother, the Most Christian King, hath, at our 
desire, released from imprisonment on board his galleys, such of his 
subjects as were detained there on account of their professing the 
Protestant religion ; We, being willing to show by some mark of our 
favor towards his subjects, how kind we take his compliance there- 



TREATY OF UTRECHT. 75 

in, have therefore thought fit hereby to signify our will and pleasure 
to you, that you permit such of them as have any lands or tenements 
in the places under our Government in Acadia and Newfoundland, 
that have been or are to be yielded to us by virtue of the late treaty 
of peace, and are willing to continue our subjects, to retain and enjoy 
their said lands and tenements without any molestation, as fully and 
freely as other our subjects do or may possess their lands or estates, 
or to sell the same, if they shall rather choose to remove elsewhere. 
And for so doing, this shall be your warrant. 

11 By Her Majesty's command, 

" Dartmouth." 



The situation of the Acadians was thus established by 
Art. XIV. of the treaty and by this letter. In its essen- 
tial points this situation was very clear. They had, 
besides the free exercise of their religion, the choice 
either to remain in the country, keeping the ownership 
of all they possessed, or to leave the country, bringing 
■away with them all their movable goods and also the pro* 
ceeds of the sale of their immovable property. This 
letter did not specify any time for their departure. 
This omission, if it were one, might throw some doubt 
on this point. The treaty, which was three months 
previous, fixed the delay to a year. Was it then to be 
understood that the time fixed by this treaty continued 
to be what the treaty had made it, or did it become un- 
limited ? The remark that the compiler of the archives 
of Nova Scotia adds at the foot of the document might 
make us believe that he adopts the second interpreta- 
tion. Such, however, could not be his intention, for, 
when we have better understood the motives which 
always animated this compiler, we shall understand 
better that he could not accept an interpretation which 
would have been so favorable to the Acadians. I am 
inclined to believe and I deem it my duty to say so, that, 



76 TREATY OF UTRECHT. 

strictly speaking, the delay fixed by the treaty was not 
modified by the letter of Queen Anne. 

This distinction is after all of little importance, 
because, from that time forth the Acadians had decided 
to leave the province, and even then they were actively 
preparing to do so. This departure would have been 
accomplished in the autumn of 1713, had it not been for 
the obstacles opposed thereto by Governor Vetch, and 
repeated under different forms by Nicholson, Cauldfield, 
Doucette, Phillips, Armstrong, and later still by Corn- 
wallis. During seventeen years (1713-1730) all the 
events of Acadia are connected with the artifices used 
to prevent this departure and rivet the Acadians to the 
soil by an oath of allegiance. To suppress these facts 
is to render the history of this period unintelligible and 
altogether false. For some reason or other, whether it 
be for not having had access to the documents which 
we possess or for other less avowable reasons, these facts 
have not come to light or even been touched either by 
historians or by the compiler of the archives of Nova 
Scotia. 

As to this gentleman, I have declared in my preface, 
without hesitation and without reticence, that the 
volume which he compiled has been put together 
with great partiality and with the intention of prej- 
udicing the public against the Acadians. This grave 
accusation I have uttered deliberately after mature re- 
flection and without laying aside for a single moment 
the benevolence and charity that animates me ; but to 
judge it well, it will be necessary to peruse this work, 
since my reasons are based upon the facts and developed 
from them as they present themselves in the course of 
the narrative. To explain the circumstances of this 



COMPILATION OF THE ARCHIVES. 77 

publication let me say at the outset that the Legislative 
Assembly of Nova Scotia on April 30, 1857, on motion 
of Honorable Joseph Howe, adopted the following res- 
olution : 

"That His Excellency the Governor be respectfully requested to 
cause the ancient records and documents illustrative of the history 
and progress of society in this Province, to be examined, preserved 
and arranged, either for reference or publication, as the Legislature 
may hereafter determine." 

What precedes, as also what follows, is extracted from 
the very preface of the volume of the Archives, compiled 
by Thomas B. Akins in virtue of this resolution and of 
those which followed. 

■** In the following year the Lieut. -Governor was authorized by the 
Assembly to procure from the State Paper Office, in England, 
copies of any dispatches or documents that may be found necessary 
to complete our files. 

" In 1859, by another vote of the House, he was empowered to 
procure from the Government of Canada, copies of such papers in 
the Archives of Quebec as related to the early history of Acadia.'" 

The compiler afterwards adds his personal reflections 
in the following manner : 

" The expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia is an important 
event in the history of British America, and has lately derived pecu- 
liar interest from the frequent reference made to it by modern 
writers. Although much has been written on the subject, yet, until 
lately, it has undergone little actual investigation, and, in conse- 
quence, the necessity for their removal has not been clearly perceived 
and the motives which led to its enforcement have been often mis- 
understood. I have, therefore, carefully selected all documents in 
possession of the Government of this Province, that could in any way 
throw light on the history and conduct of the Acadians." 

In this preface two distinct parts are to be kept in 
view, (1) that which relates to the end the Legislature 
had in view, namely : to unite in one volume the most, 



78 COMPILATION OF THE ARCHIVES. 

important documents that might serve for the general 
history of the Province, and to procure in London and 
Quebec those which should he judged useful to fill up 
the deficiencies of the Archives of Nova Scotia; and 
(2) that which relates to the compiler's own private ends. 
Even without reading between the lines, it is easy to 
see that the end of Mr. Akins was not exactly the same 
as that of the Legislature. 

The special purpose lie had in view was to comprise 
in this volume all the documents that could throw some 
light on the causes that furnished motives for the expul- 
sion of the Acadians. In substance he says, up to the pres- 
enttime these motives have ?iut been understood. Precisely 
so ; during a century historians had been astray, and 
he, Mr. Akins, was going to set all future historians once 
more on the right path ; he was going to group together 
all that might be injurious to the Acadians, and to 
make his volume a convenient and easy arsenal where 
writers might come to seek weapons against those poor 
Acadians, to whom all this would be a mystery, and 
who would suffer in silence whatever insults these 
writers would be pleased to heap upon them. 

In matters of history, any plausible opinion, whether 
it be or not the result of the aberrations of the mind or 
of the heart, is to be respected, and Mr. Akins could 
very well entertain the opinions which he expresses in 
Uiis preface; but I am surely justified in finding him 
presumptuous when he ventures to condemn the writers 
of a whole century, including those who were contem- 
poraries of these events ; and in branding as unbecoming 
and injudicious his inserting in a preface his own opin- 
ions on events which were narrated in the compilation 
he was charged to make. This compilation had to be 



OMISSIONS OF THE COMPILER* 79 

impartial, or it would deviate from the end which the 
Legislature had in view ; and, if the fitness of things did 
not move Mr. Akins, his shrewdness should have made 
him hold his tongue lest his work should seem biassed. 
And to show how great indeed was his want of tact, I 
may say that his preface itself made me believe that he 
must be partial and prejudiced, and, starting therefrom, 
I studied him closely, compared, meditated, and finally 
arrived at this clear and plain conclusion, that his par- 
tiality was outdone only by his bad faith. 

For the moment, let it be sufficient to say that this 
volume is in reality not, as the Legislature wished it to 
be, a collection of the most important documents relating 
to the general history of the province, but a collection 
of all that could appear to justify the deportation of the 
Acadians ; that it omits all or nearly all the explana- 
tions that might be favorable to them, and systematically 
excludes all that was unfavorable to the governors. 
And, let not the reader imagine that I have purposely 
hunted up the omissions I charge him with in order to 
introduce them into this work ; the very importance of 
those which I point out by the way, shows that I have not 
stopped at the trifles which abound, but that, on the con- 
trary, I have kept silence on many grave facts in order 
not to encumber my work. 

The first documents, introduced into the volume of the 
archives, are dated November, 1714. It seems to me 
clear that the intention of the legislature must have been 
to comprise therein all the documents since the taking 
of Port Royal in 1710, or at least since April, 1713, the 
date of the treaty of peace. The documents between 
this date and November, 1714, were particularly import- 
ant, in order to determine in a precise manner what had 



80 OMISSIONS OF THE COMPILER, 

been done both by the governors and by the Acadians 
in respect of those clauses of the treaty that referred to 
the departure. The Acadians had the space of a year 
to withdraw with their effects, their cattle and the out- 
come of the sale of their immovable goods : we know 
by the sequel that very few of them left their country 
at that time ; but did they wish to leave ? were they pre- 
vented from doing so ? that is what we might expect to 
see in the volume of the archives. To find light on this 
obscure point, I had to search elsewhere, and, as will be 
seen, the result of my researches is of great importance 
and diametrically opposed to the pretensions of the 
Compiler. 

By leaving out all the documents between 1710 and the 
end of 1714 he has led into error nearly all the writers 
that have written the history of Nova Scotia. They 
begin where the Compiler begins ; they finish where he 
finishes ; they omit what he has omitted, they skip what 
he has skipped. I suppose all this is done in very good 
faith, and if I mention this, it is rather to show that the 
Compiler has attained his end, that he will continue to 
do so just so long as his motives are not understood, so 
long as it is not known that there is beyond his volume 
a vast unexplored field, which explains what he did not 
wish to disclose, which makes us take the proper meas- 
ure of the man and his work. In the part which claims 
our attention at present, unless we search elsewhere 
for the means to fill up this serious void, he obliges us 
to enter on the scene in the second act of the drama ; 
which may leave many things unexplained and inexpli- 
cable.* 

♦To be brief and to avoid all confusion. I will hereafter use the term ' Th<-> 
Compiler ' to designate Thomas B. Akins, compiler of the archives of Nova 
Scotia. 



THE ACADIANS' DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 81 

At the taking of Port Royal, Colonel Vetch, as I have 
said, had been appointed lieutenant-governor of the 
place. The following year he went to rejoin Nicholson 
in his projected expedition against Montreal, leaving in 
his place, as administrator, Sir Charles Hobby ; when 
this undertaking was abandoned, he returned to his post, 
where he reassumed his office and exercised it till 
the summer of 1714. October 20, 1712, Nicholson had 
been appointed governor, but, during his absence, Vetch 
fulfilled his functions with the title of lieutenant-gover- 
nor of the garrison, in which office he was replaced in 
1714 by Major Caulfield and later by Captain Dou- 
cette, while Nicholson remained titular governor until 
1717. 

I have said that since the signing of the treaty the 
Acadians had almost decided to leave the country, but 
that they were prevented by all imaginable means and 
artifices. In fact in August, or perhaps even in July 
1713, they sent delegates to Louisburg to come to an 
understanding with the French governor on the con- 
ditions to be held out to them if they were transported 
over to the French territory. These delegates sent in 
their report, and the answer of the Acadian people dated 
September 23, 1713, implies a refusal. They do not wish 
to accept an establishment at lie Roj-ale (Cape Breton) 
without effectual assistance, since the soil there is of 
an inferior quality, woody, and without natural meadow- 
land to pasture their cattle. If, however, they are 
obliged to take the oath, they will depart anyhow : — 

" Besides," says their report, " we do not know yet in what man- 
ner the English will use us. If they burthen us in respect to our 
religion, or cut up our settlement to divide the lands with people of 
our nation we will abandon them absolutely." 
6 



82 THE ACADIANS' DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 

The governor of Louisburg, M. de Costabelle, was 
sorely vexed at this reply, and still more so at a letter 
from Father Gaulin, whom he had hoped to enlist as an 
ally in his dealings with the Acadians. The latter had 
replied " that he could not lend himself to his manoeuvres, 
as he did not see any sufficient guarantees for the assist- 
ance which he, M. de Costabelle, promised, and that 
it did not become him to employ missionaries in an 
affair, the purpose of which appeared to be to warp his 
judgment in order to deceive others ; that, if he could 
not offer any better guarantees for his good intentions, 
he preferred to see the Acadians remain on their lands 
with the English, who are doing all in their power to 
prevent them from departing. " * 

The more the French government desired, as will be 
explained further on, that the Acadians should take 
advantage of the treaty to go over into French territory, 
the more were the authorities of Port Royal opposed 
thereto. Negotiations were resumed between the Aca- 
dians and the governor of Louisburg; lands were offered 
on Prince Edward Island (Tile Saint-Jean), and divers 
advantages which were considered acceptable by the 
Acadians. They wished to leave ; Colonel Vetch 
opposed this under the pretext that lie was only lien- 
tenant-governor, and that they had to wait for the arrival 
of Governor Nicholson. He arrived onty the following 
summer, when the year stipulated by the treaty had 
just expired. The following letters, both from Major 
THermite who replaced de Costabelle at Louisburg, 
refer to these event. The first is dated July 11, 1714, 
and is addressed to Nicholson himself : — 

* Costabelle au Ministre, Nov. 1713— Murdoch, vol. i. p. 338. 



THE ACADIANS' DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 83 

" Having learnt, sir, from several inhabitants of Port Royal, of 
Mines and Beaubassin, that he who commands in your absence at 
Port Royal (Col. Vetch), has forbidden them to leave, and even re- 
fused the permission to those who asked him for it, which event 
makes most of the Acadians now established on the lands of the King 
of England unable to withdraw this year 

11 That is what has determined me, according to the order given me 
by the King, to send thither M. de la Ronde Denys, into whose hands 
I have remitted the orders of Queen Anne ; he will confer with you 
about the reasons why they are detained. I hope, sir, you will 
render all due justice, and that you will have no other view than to 
obey the behests of the Queen." 

The other letter is from the same to the Minister and dated August 
29, 1714 :"He who commands Port Royal has forbidden the Acadi- 
ans to leave the country before the arrival of Mr. Nicholson, so that 
all those who have come here had escaped. They represented to me 
that it was necessary to send an officer there in order to uphold their 
rights, the English having forbidden the missionaries to meddle with 
the affairs of the Acadians." — (Archives de la Marine et des Colonies.) 

This is clear enough. The year had just expired, and 
the prohibitions of Governor Vetch were of sufficiently- 
distant date to have given the Governor of Louisburg 
time to be informed of them, to communicate this in- 
formation to the King of France ; and the latter had had 
time to obtain an order from the Queen of England, to 
transmit all documents to the Governor of Louisburg, 
to appoint M. de la Ronde and to write to Nicholson 
under date of July 11, 1714. 

And what were these orders of Queen Anne to Nich- 
olson ? Evidently, to let the Acadians depart, since 
they were within the limits of the year when the com- 
plaints were made, and since Major THermite sum- 
moned Nicholson to execute the behests of the Queen. 
We shall see how he respected them, or rather what 
measures he took to elude them . 

Messrs. de la Ronde and Pinsens, bearers of the orders 



84 THE ACADIANS' DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 

of Queen Anne, arrived at Port Royal about July 20, 
at the same time as Nicholson himself. He gave them 
a superb reception, took cognizance of the orders which 
they bore, and promised to let the Acadians depart 
within the lapse of another year, should they decide 
to do so. He permitted them to hold assemblies in order 
to make sure of the intentions of the Acadians. All 
reiterated the determination to abandon the country.* 
Nicholson seemed to agree to everything ; but, under 
the pretext of referring the matter to the Queen, he fin- 
ished by refusing everything. It required a more than 
ordinary dose of bad faith to refuse to obey the formal 
orders of his sovereign : that is, however, what he did, 
and we have the proof of it in the following official doc- 
ument, which is an account of the negotiations of 
Messrs. de la Ronde and Pinsens with Nicholson : 

" In 1714 Messrs. de la Ronde and Pinsens, captains, were Bent to 
Acadia to obtain from Mr. Nicholson freedom for the Acadians to 
withdraw with their cattle and grain to He Koyale." 

" Mr. Nicholson permitted these officers to assemble the inhabit- 
ants in order to know their intentions. They all declared that they 
wanted to return to their lawful sovereign. 

" Mr. Nicholson was asked to allow these inhabitants, conformably 
to Art. XIV. of the treaty of peace, the space of a year to remain 
on their land unmolested ; 

" That they might be allowed, during this time, to transport their 
grain and cattle, to construct ships for the transportation of their 
goods, and to receive from France the rigging and complete outfit for 
those which would be built at Port Royal or elsewhere. 

" These two articles were sent back for the decision of the Queen. 

* The Governor of Acadia, Mascarene.writing to Shirley, Governor of Mas- 
sachusetts, April 6, 1718, said : " M. Nicholson came over as Governor, 
and proposed to the Acadians the terms agreed on for them at the treaty, 
which were to keep their possessions, etc., etc., or to dispose of them, if 
they chose to withdraw within the space of a twelvemonth. They, to 
a man, chose the last." 



THE ACADIANS DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 9o 

11 They asked also that they miglit be allowed to sell their property 
or to leave therefor letters of attorney. 

" This article was answered : ' Remitted to the Queen,' more- 
over referred to her letter which is to be a sure guarantee therefor. 

"Mr. Nicholson promised, besides, a prompt dispatch of all these 
articles, but since that time there has been no reply about this mat- 
ter."— (Conseil de Marine, March 28th, 1716.) 

This official document is confirmed by several others ; 
but I will give only the following, because it contains 
other important facts. It is addressed by the com- 
mander of Louisburg to the minister, and dated August 
29, 1714, that is, immediately after the return of Messrs. 
de la Ronde and Pinsens : 

" June 13th I had Mr. de la Ronde leave for Port Royal. I send 
your Highness the copy of the letter that I wrote to Mr. Nicholson 
and of the instructions that I gave to Mr. de la Ronde. I confided 
to him the orders of the Queen in English and French. 

" Your Highness tells me that you are procuring for them the rig- 
ging that I had requested ; but it will come late : before they receive 
it, the season will be already advanced. The Acadians had written 
to Boston to have some; Mr. Nicholson forbade it, and even seized the 
ships and boats that they had built. 

" They appeared decided not to leave their country before having re- 
ceived Mr. Nicholson'' s decision. It is known he will do all in his 
power to retain them ; they have even already twice held a council 
with the view of leaving Port Royal.'''' 

Nicholson, who had just arrived, had probably not 
had time to realize the dreadful consequences resulting 
to the country from the departure of the Acadians. 
That is why, at first, when he took cognizance of the 
orders of the Queen, he promised to obey them and not 
to oppose the departure of the Acadians ; but, when he 
was informed by his officers of the disastrous conse- 
quences of this departure, he bethought himself, in 
order to gain time, to refer the question to the Queen, to 



86 THE ACADIANS' DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 

refer to her what she ordered him to do, to remit to her 
decision the clear and formal clauses of a treaty. The 
subterfuge was a gross one, but he had no others at 
command just then. 

Unfortunately for the Acadians the Queen died a few 
days after August 1st, 1714 ; else it is probable that, in 
spite of the consequences, she would have made it a 
point of honor to have her decisions respected. Numer- 
ous communications were successively addressed to the 
Lords of Trade to represent to them in sombre colors 
the many inconveniences resulting from the departure 
of the Acadians, if it were not prevented ; and that is 
why the questions referred to the Queen by Nicholson 
were never settled in either sense ; that is why for a 
long time the Acadians were kept under the impression 
that the questions submitted were still being considered 
by the authorities, when, in reality, these latter were 
perfectly determined to put all possible obstacles in the 
way of their departure. In their child-like belief that 
justice gave rights, that treaties were sacred, that honor 
was the basis and support of governments, the Acadi;ins 
waited long for this reply, which they were always told 
was under consideration ; but they waited in vain. They 
felt so certain that justice would be shown them, and 
that their departure could be effected in the course of 
the following summer (1715), that many did not even 
sow their lands in the spring. 

M. de Costabelle, in a letter to the minister, dated 
Sept. 9th, 1715, informs him, " that the Acadians of 
Mines had not sown their lands that year, that they had 
grain to live upon for two years, and had kept them- 
selves ready to abandon the country." * 
♦"Father Dominic on his return presented him (M. de Costabelle) x. 



THE ACADIANS' DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 87 

It is clearly apparent by the documents which I have 
produced, all of an official nature, and by some others 
also which I have seen, that, in the autumn of 1713, 
only a few months after the signing of the treaty of 
peace, the Acadians announced to Lieutenant-Governor 
Vetch their intention to leave the country ; that from 
that moment they prepared for their departure, but 
were prevented by Vetch under the pretext that they 
had to await the arrival of Governor Nicholson ; that 
the latter, without regard for the conditions of the treaty 
and the formal orders of the Queen transmitted to him 
by M. de la Ronde, and without any other motive but 
to gain time and deprive the Acadians of the rights 
granted to them by the treaty, referred their request to 
the Queen ; that, subsequently, after having refused to 
transport the Acadians in English vessels, he also re- 
fused to French vessels entry into the ports of Acadia ; 
that their determination to leave the country was such 
that they built vessels themselves ; that, wishing to pro- 
cure at Louisburg rigging to equip them, they were re- 



memoir, from which it appears that the Acadians were determined to 
abandon all in order to leave the country ; that most of them did not wish 
to sow their lands in hopes of retiring in the spring. That several had 
built ships for the transport of their families and their effects." ( Conseil 
de la Marine, 28 mars, 1716). 

" The English are doing all they can to retain the Acadians, not only by 
avoiding useless unpleasantness, but also by refusing them the things neces- 
sary for their passage, and by making them understand that they will not 
permit them to dispose of their immovable goods nor of their cattle, that 
nothing but a few provisions would be left to them" (Letter of Intendant 
Begon, Quebec, Sept. 25, 1715.) 

"In his letter of Nov. 6th, 1715, he (M. de Costabelle) says that he 
spoke to Mr. Capon, sent by the governor of Port Royal, of the hard and 
unjust way in which Mr. Nicholson had treated the Acadians, altogether 
contrary to the orders of Queen Anne and to the word he had given to 
Messrs." de la Ronde and Pinsens. 

" Mr. Capon agreed that Nicholson's conduct had not been approved by 
any officer of his nation, but that Vetch, the lieutenant-governor, could 
change nothing without new orders from the king of England ; and thus all 
further movements for the free departure of the Acadians are suspended 
until more ample decision be given thereon by the two crowns." 



88 THE ACADIAJtfS' DEPARTUKE OPPOSED. 

fused permission ; that, having applied to Boston for 
the same object, they again met with a refusal, and 
moreover their vessels were seized. 

Nothing of what precedes is found in the volume of 
the archives ; it is possible the Compiler was unac- 
quainted with some of these facts, and that, in spite of 
their importance, he may thus escape censure. His 
mission, as imposed upon him by the legislature, was 
restricted to the duty of collecting materials in Halifax 
and London and those of the Archives de la Marine 
that were likely to be found in Quebec. But, among 
the documents I have cited are : (1) a letter of Costabelle 
to Nicholson, (2) the orders of Queen Anne, of which 
Mr. dela Ronde was bearer, transmitted to Nicholson, (3) 
the account of their proceedings, all of which must have 
been in the archives of Halifax ; and, nevertheless, in 
spite of their extreme importance, they are not in the 
volume of the archives. However, the number of im- 
portant documents omitted, all having the same general 
drift, is so considerable that I am perhaps wrong in 
directing attention to such a comparative trifle as the 
non-appearance of three documents. He was not, how- 
ever, ignorant of this question of the obstacles put to 
the departure of the Acadians : for, as it will be scon, 
there are many other documents of the same kind with 
which he was acquainted. The question seems to have 
made him somewhat uneasy ; for on page 2o5 of his 
volume, when the events he was then considering 
referred to the transportation of 1755, he has the fol- 
lowing note, relying on a declaration of Governor Mas- 
carene : 

" Governor Nicholson came to Annapolis in 1714, and then pro- 
posed to the Acadians the term? agreed on for them, which were, to 



THE ACADIANs' DEPARTURE OPPOSED. 89 

keep their lands on their becoming subjects of the British Crown, or 
to dispose of their property and withdraw from the country, if they 
chose, within one year. They all chose the latter, and prepared to 
leave the country; but the vessels promised them from Cape Breton 
for the purpose of their removal not being sent, they were compelled 
to remain.'''' 

In the foregoing very little is exact, but the Com- 
piler offers us a new proof of an outrage which the 
documents already cited point out. Thus the Aca- 
dians, according to the Compiler, if we understand him 
rightly, would not have had the privilege that the 
treaty clearly gave them ; namely : to transport their 
goods, their cattle, etc., etc. ; but only to dispose of 
them before their departures Now, as they were the 
only inhabitants of the country, the reducing of their 
right to transport their cattle and effects to a mere per- 
mission to dispose of them would have been illusory and 
a new imposture. But, says he, they were not able to 
depart, because the vessels promised from the island of 
Cape Breton did not come. 

There is not a word anywhere to sustain the Com- 
piler's assertion. Can it be supposed that the French, 
who had so much interest in this transmigration, would 
have neglected to send them vessels for that object? 
Such a supposition is absurd. But, then, why were the 
Acadians prevented from setting out in their own ships 
and procuring their equipment at Louisburg and even at 
Boston? Clearly, this building of boats to quit the 
country was but the outcome of a^prohibition to leave it in 
French or English ships. 

The absurdity of the Compiler's pretension would be 
alone sufficient to justify us in rejecting it with contempt. 
This strange pretension having never been given out in 
1714 or 1715 or even afterwards, one cannot expect to 



90 

find it contradicted or disputed ; however, we have it 
incidentally contradicted in a very explicit manner in 
two documents ; here is one of them : 

" The absolute refusal which the English governors have always 
made, to permit even the King's vessels to come to Acadia in order 
to transport those who desired to depart, or to lend rigging for the 
ships which the Acadians had built and which they were obliged to 
sell to the English ; the prohibition imposed on them of transporting 
vjith them any live stock or provisions of grain; the grief of abandon- 
ing the hereditary estates of their fathers, their own work and their 
children's, without any reimbursement or compensation ; all these 
infringements are the principal reasons of the inaction in which they 
have remained." — (Conseil de la Marine, year 1719, vol. iv. folio 96). 

The other document is from Mr. de Brouillan, gov- 
ernor of Louisburg, and is not less explicit.* (Archives 
de la Marine, vol. III., fol. 180). 

Moreover, as we have seen elsewhere, Nicholson 
had referred the question of the departure of the Aca- 
dians to the Queen, and this never-to-be-settled reference 
is most likely the pretext afterwards used by the 
Governors to prevent the Acadians from departing in 
any kind of ships, English or French, or of their own 
make. This is strengthened by the fact that, on the 7th 
of November following said reference (1714), Mr. de 
Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine, sent the French Min- 
ister at London a copy of the report of Messrs. de la 
Ronde and Pinsens, with instructions to hasten the so- 
lution of the questions referred by Nicholson. The only 
action ever taken upon it was the submitting of the 
question to the Lords of Trade by the Secretary of State, 
Lord Townshend. 

* " The Acadians, says Haliburton, alleged that they had been detained 
contrary to their desire, that they had been refused leave to depart in 
English-built vessels, and that, upon making application to embark on 
board of French ships, they were informed that such vessels could not, con- 
sistently with the navigation laws, be allowed to enter a colonial harbor." 



NICHOLSON AND VETCH. 91 

The Compiler lias not a word about this reference to the 
Queen, but if he can reasonably pretend that it was not 
possible for him to know most of the documents I have 
cited, because they were not found in the archives of 
Halifax, London or Quebec, this cannot be the case for 
those which I am here about to offer to the reader : — 



Colonel Vetch to the Board of Trade. 

" Mar. 9th, 1715. 
" My Lords : — " I could not but judge it my duty out of a trew con- 
cern for tlie publick good : to put Your Lordships in mind of the cir- 
cumstances of the country, the Acadians being in a manner obliged 
to leave the country by the treatment they received from Mr. Nich- 
olson while Governor there ; as will be made appear to Your Lord- 
ships by the affidavits of some persons lately come from thence * : to 
which I humbly pray Your Lordships to be refered : what 1 am now 
to intimate to Your Lordships is, that as the season of the year now 
advances, unless some speedy orders are sent to prevent the Acadians'' 
removal with their cattle and effects to Cape Brittoun as it will 
wholly strip and Ruine Nova Scotia, so it will attonce make Cape 
Brittoun a populous and well stocked Colony, which many years and 
great expense could not have done directly from France as I already 
observed in a former paper '." 



It has been seen that, according to the Compiler, 
Nicholson, at the end of July, 1714, had given a year to 
the Acadians to retire. The above letter is dated 
March 9th, 1715, eight months after this promise. If 
such were the case, what became of the promise, when 
Vetch thus begged for prompt orders to prevent their 
departure — " speedy orders to prevent their removal ? " 
And Vetch only repeated what he had already said in a 
letter of November 24th preceding. 

The following letters throw more light on the situa- 

* Vetch had then been in London since the preceding September or 
October. 



92 NICHOLSON AND VETCH. 

tion. We reproduce them, like the foregoing letter, in 

their original spelling : 

Colonel Yetch to Board of Trade. 

"London, Sept. 2d. 1715. 
"M. Nicholson's discourageing, or rather discharging all Trade 
there to the Acadians, and causing keep the gates of the Fort shutt 
against them night and day, that they may have no manner of com- 
merce with the Garrison, and having by Proclamation discharged 
their harbouring or resetting any of the natives, with whom they 
used to have a considerable Trade for Peltry, hath so discouraged 
them from staying that they had built abundance of small vessels to 
carry themselves and effects to Cape Brittoun, which was what the 
French officers so much sollicited." 

Vetch carefully abstains from mentioning the reason 
that prevented the Acadians from leaving in the numer- 
ous ships that they had built, but one would easily 
guess it, if one did not know it already through many 
other channels. 

Colonel Vetch to Board of Trade. 

" London, February 21st, 1716. 
" As to the Acadians,by what I can learn, there is not many of them 
removed notwithstanding the discouragements they mett withal some 
time ago, and will, no doubt, gladly remain upon their plantations — 
some of which are considerable — providing they may be protected by 
the Crown, and, as no country is of value without inhabitants, so, 
the removal of them and their rattle to Cape Brittoun would be a 
great addition to that new colony, so it would wholly ruute Nova 
Scot ia unless supplyed by a British Colony, which could not be done 
in several years, so that the Acadians with their stocks of cattle re- 
maining there is very much for the advantage of the Crown. 11 ' 

LlEUT.-GOVERNOR CaULFIELD TO COL. YfTCH. 

11 Annapolis PvOYALl, 2d Nov., 1715. 
"I am but too senceable of Colonel Xickolson's unpresedented 
malice, and, had his designs taken their desired effect, T am per- 
swaded there had not been att this time an inhabitant of any kind in 
the country, nor, indeed, a garrison: when I recollect his declara- 
tion to the Acadians and afterwards to the soldiers, wherein he told 



i 



NICHOLSON AND VETCH. 93 

the latter that the french were all rebells, and would certainly cut 
their throats if they went into their houses, telling of us that we must 
have no manner of correspondance with them, and ordered the gates 
of the garrison to be shut, tho' att the same time he was senciable 
that we could not subsist the ensueing winter, but by their mains, 
there beeing no other prospects left to us ... If the whole seine of his 
administration here was plainly laid downe, itt would be very diffi- 
cult to find one instance of all his proceedings, whereby the garrison 
or colonny could receive the least benefit." 

Adams to Captain Steele. 

" 24th January, 1715. 
.... " We were in hopes here upon General Nicholson's arrival, he 
would settle the place on a good footing, but on the contrary, put us 
in the greatest confusion, pull'd down the fforts, Drove away the 
Acadians, and carried away all the English he cou'd, that the place is 
now desolate. In short, if his commission had been to destroy the 
country, he could not have discharg'd his trust to better purpose than 
he did, he employed all his time here in pursuing his implacable 
malice against Governor Vetch, when in truth he did the English in- 
terest in this country more damage in the two months he was here 
than Govr Vetch cou'd have done in all his life, if he had been as bad 
as he would fain make the world believe he was, he used to curse and 
damm Gov. Vetch and all his friends. There is not one soul in the 
place, french or english — save 2 — but hate and abhor his name." 

We have likewise, with the same import a letter of 
Captain Armstrong who became later on Lieutenant- 
Governor of the Province. 

In our first chapter we reproduced a letter of the 
Acadians to Mr. de Vaudreuil, in which they complained 
of being treated as negroes by Governor Vetch. If 
such were the case, and it is difficult to doubt it, one 
must not be astonished at the efforts they made to leave 
the country, nor at the subterfuges invented to deter 
them from doing so. 

There was, evidently, great animosity between Nich- 
olson and Vetch, and, what is almost as evident, it had 
its source in covetousness. It seems that Vetch, who 



94 NICHOLSON AND VETCH. 

was then in London, sought to supplant Nicholson, by- 
alleging the testimonies of the principal officers of 
Annapolis, testimonies which he transmitted to the 
Lords of Trade. At the same time, he sought to prove 
to them that he understood better than Nicholson the 
interests of the country, and that he was the man needed 
in the circumstances. It would be curious to know the 
counter-accusations of Nicholson ; for he could not toler- 
ate such an attack without a rejoinder most injurious to 
Vetch's reputation, and solid reasons were not wanting 
to him, for Vetch underwent a trial in 1706 before the 
legislature of Massachusetts, with the result that he was 
condemned to pay £200 "for having supplied the French 
with ammunition and stores of war" Judging the 
quarrel by its results, we have reason to think that both 
succumbed in one common defeat, because for both the 
career of honors seems to have terminated there ; Vetch 
obtained nothing, and Nicholson lost his position two 
years later. As it often happens on these occasions, both 
succeeded in proving that they were equally unworthy. 
We are better acquainted with the accusations laid 
against Nicholson, and, even should allowance be made 
for exaggeration, this allowance cannot be considerable, 
since the accusations rest on the testimony of three per- 
sons who were regularly appointed lieutenant-governors 
of Nova Scotia, namely : Vetch, Caulfield, Armstrong, 
and on the testimony of Adams, who, in 1739, was for 
some time administrator of the province. Without this 
quarrel, without this rivalry we should know nothing of 
the character and conduct of Nicholson and Vetch ; were 
we to trust the Compiler, we should think ourselves in 
the presence of irreproachable men to whose memory 
posterity should raise statues. 



NICHOLSON AND VETCH. 95 

What is to be thought of the Compiler who has 
omitted these documents? Were they unimportant 
or too inconveniently important ? Was he, or could he 
be ignorant of them ? Certainly not, since they are all in 
the Colonial Records in London (Nova Scotia section), 
where the Compiler was charged to procure copies of 
all the documents that interested the province. They are 
to be found in volumes I. and II., alongside of those very 
documents which he procured and which we find in his 
own compilation. What could be more interesting for 
history than documents such as these, which, apart from 
their importance arising from the publicity of the facts 
they contain, offer us a rare opportunity of judging the 
character, the temperament and the motives of the per- 
sons who figure in them so conspicuously ? Mr. Akins 
is not only a compiler, he is at the same time a biogra- 
pher. He has inserted in his volume numerous notes, in 
which he gives us his appreciation of the personages who 
played any part in these events ; but, invariably, when 
there is question of a governor or any man that had 
relations with the Acadians, he is suave and eulogistic 
with regard to them. Yet here was an excellent oppor- 
tunity to give his judgment on Nicholson, in which the 
virtues he might have would be judiciously coupled 
with his faults, so as to show forth the most salient 
traits of his character. This study was easy, thanks to 
the well-grounded opinions of four lieutenant-governors ; 
performed with intelligence and impartiality, it would 
have powerfully assisted the reader to pass an enlight- 
ened judgment on the whole course of events. 

The letters quoted above are important from another 
and not less striking point of view. They explain the 
deep interests the governors had in preventing the emi- 



96 NICHOLSON AND VETCH. 

gration of the Acadians. As Vetch says, this departure 
would ruin the country ; and, though eight months had 
not yet elapsed since Nicholson had decided in presence 
of Messrs. de la Ronde and Pinsens to refer this question 
of the departure to the Queen, he does not hesitate to 
ask the Lords of Trade for permission to prevent their 
departure : " Unless some speedy orders are sent to pre- 
vent the Acadians' removal with their cattle and effects to 
Cape Breton, as it will wholly strip and ruin Nova Scotia, 
so it will at once make Cape Breton a popidar and well- 
stocked colony" And, as he says elsewhere, " They 
had built abundance of small vessels to carry themselves 
and effects to Cape Breton." He is careful not to say 
that he had prevented them from leaving in those same 
vessels ; but the conclusion is self-evident. It is easy to 
see that fraud and force had much more weight in his 
mind than justice and right. In a man who a few years 
before had, through greed of gain, " supplied the French 
with ammunition and stores of war" and had been con- 
demned for this act, this is not surprising. Besides, it 
was not otherwise with his successors. 

Another not less grave reason against the departure 
of the Acadians is, that the Indians of Acadia and of 
all that forms to-day Maine and the maritime provinces 
were, from time immemorial, sworn enemies of the 
English. This departure would have left Nova Scotia 
without an inhabitant, and in the impossibility of peo- 
pling it with colonists, who would have been daily 
exposed to be massacred by these Indians. Possession of 
the country would have become useless ; and, if the 
English had persisted in keeping a fort and garrison 
there, this latter would have been provisioned only at 
great expense. Such was the perplexing situation of 



KICHOLSON AND YETCH. 97 

the governors and of the Home Government. All the 
communications exchanged between these two make ns 
clearly see that the situation was thus understood, and 
all the obstacles accumulated to hinder the departure of 
the Acadians have never had any other motives than 
the various interests which have been brought to light 
in the preceding documents. Anent this last motive — 
fear of the Indians — I will cite one letter from Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Caulfield to the Lords of Trade, not 
because it stands alone, but on account of its being more 
explicit than others : 

" I have always observed, since my coming here, the forwardness 
of the Acadians to serve us when occasion offered." [This is aston- 
ishing, after their harsh treatment and the trickery resorted to by 
Nicholson and Vetch]. " And if some English inhabitants were sent 
over, especially industrious laborers, tar and pitch makers, carpenters 
and smiths, it would be of great advantage to this colony ; but in 
case ye Acadians quit us, we shall never be able to maintain or pro- 
tect oar English family's from ye insults of ye Indians, ye worst 
enemies, wch ye Acadians by their staying will in a great measure 
ward off for their own sokes. Your Lordships will see by ye stock of 
cattell they have at this time that in two or three years, with due 
encouragement, we may be furnished with everything within our- 
selves." * 

And elsewhere, in the correspondence of the governors : "As the 
accession of such a number of Acadians to Cape Bretton, will make 
it at once a very populous Colony ; so it is to be considered, one 
hundred of the Acadians, who were born upon that continent, and 
are perfectly known in the woods ; can march upon snow-shoes, and 
understand the use of birch canoes, are of more value and service 
than five times their number of raw men newly come from Europe. 
So their skill in the fishery, as well as the cultivating of the soil, must 
make at once of Cape Bretton the most powerful Colony the French 
have in America, and of the greatest danger and damage to all the 
British Colonies as well as the universal trade of Great Britain." 



* Stated by Vetch to be about 5,000 black cattle, besides a great number 
of sheep and hogs. 

7 



98 NICHOLSON AND VETCH. 

With what we know of human nature, with the 
teachings of history in general, and particularly of this 
history, no one, taking into account the grave interests 
that the departure of the Acadians compromised, will 
doubt the obstacles of every kind opposed to this 
departure. Even without proofs the presumptions 
would be of great weight ; but, when the fact is sus- 
tained, without contradiction, at least without explicit 
contradiction, by a mass of official documents, it becomes 
a certainty of the first order, which remains fixed in 
history as a question withdrawn from debate, in spite of 
the compiler, in spite of those who, like Parkman, have 
accepted without further investigation his biassed and 
ill-matured assertions. 



THE OATH REQUIRED. 99 



CHAPTER IV. 

Lieutenant-Governor Caulfield — He sends Peter Capoon and 
Thomas Button to have the Acadians take the oath of alle- 
giance — Answers of the Acadians — Omissions of the Compiler — 
Lieutenant-Governor John Doucette — New injunction to take 
the oath — They consent to remain in the country on certain 
conditions with regard to the oath — Other omissions. 

With this chapter we enter at last into the volume of 
the Archives. 

It will be admitted that the two chapters immediately 
preceding are not wanting in significance. The sequel 
will show that the events of these five years have in 
themselves alone more real importance than those of the 
fifteen succeeding years. In fact, subsequent events 
are so connected with those we have just sketched, that, 
without them, they become unintelligible or assume a 
different significance. 

While waiting till the course of our narrative has 
made the learned methods of the Compiler familiar. I 
will leave the reader to his own reflections upon the 
possible motives of these strange omissions. And, if 
now and then indignation suggests expressions that 
may seem severe, I beg pardon for the moment, until 
this pardon I now solicit shall become complete and shall 
be spontaneously offered by whosoever bears with me to 
the end. 

The Compiler makes us begin at the second act of the 
drama. As the curtain rises, we perceive Lieutenant- 
Governor Caulfield, successor to Vetch, Hobby, and 



100 THE OATH REQUIRED. 

Nicholson, the fourth on the list, in the year 1715, 
ordering Messrs. Peter Capoon and Thomas Button, 
officers of the garrison, to betake themselves to Mines, 
to Beaubassin, to Penobscot, to River St. John and to 
other places : 

" Directing that His Most Sacred Majesty, George, King of Great 
Britain, France and Ireland, be proclaimed in all parts of his Govern- 
ment. You are likewise to tender the oaths of allegiance to ye 
Acadians in ye form prescribed."' 

On the 15th of the following May, Caul field ac- 
quaints the Lords of Trade with the result of the mis- 
sion of Peter Capoon and Thomas Button. 

11 Her< in< losed are the transactions of Iff. M. Button and Capoon, 
by which you will find that ye inhabitants, beeing most of them 
French, refused the oath, hating, as lam informed, refused to 
the collonny intirely and to settle under ye trench government, and I 
humblie desire to be informed how I shall behave to them .... The 
Acadians who always maintained this garrison with corn, are most 
of them quitting the collonny, specially at Mines. 

" How is this ? " must the intelligent reader of the com- 
piler's extracts say, he who knows nothing of what hap- 
pened between 1710 and 1715: "It is now five years 
since the taking of Port Royal and two years since the 
treaty of peace, and those Acadians are still in the 
country, they refuse to take the oath of allegiance and 
even to go away? Why, the governors must have been 
very good and very paternal not to have constrained them 
by force to either alternative ? " 

That is indeed what the reader must have said to 
himself in good faith, since historians, who have writ- 
ten since the compilation of this volume, have said sub- 
stantially the same thing. The Compiler knew well 
that he was constructing thereby an arsenal where men 



THE OATH REQUIRED. 101 

would come for arms without taking the trouble to look 
any farther. He knew well that most of those who 
write history, even when they have aptitude for it, 
which sometimes they have not, have seldom the patience 
to meditate, compare, observe and penetrate. He knew 
well that many of them follow one another in a row to 
fall into the same rut. There were, however, very simple 
questions to be asked here, such as these : " What had 
happened since 1710 ? Why does the Compiler begin 
his volume with the year 1715 ? Why are not the pro- 
posed formula for the oath, the replies of the Acadians 
and the report of Capoon and Button in the volume of 
the Archives ? Why does Caulfield seem to desire and 
to have ordered the departure of the Acadians, though 
in a subsequent letter he says that their departure would 
be the ruin of the country ? Why does the Compiler 
almost always omit the replies of the Acadians ? The 
documents from them are rare enough to have made it 
a bounden duty for him eagerly to grant them a place 
in his volume as well in justice to them as in order to 
permit us to pass an enlightened judgment on the 
events that depend thereon. He was not unaware of 
these replies, since the very letter of Caulfield to the 
Lords of Trade, which we have just quoted, refers to it : 
" Herein enclosed are the transactions of Messrs. Button 
and Capoon" 

I am going to supply in part the omissions of the 
Compiler. In the Colonial Records, N. S., Vol I., we 
rind, just alongside the. documents produced in the 
archives, the formula of the oath proposed by Caulfield 
and the replies of the Acadians. 

"I, A. B., sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and 
maintain a true allegiance with His Majesty, King George/' 



102 THE OATH REQUIRED. 

Reply — of the Acadians of Mines to Messrs. Capoon 
and Button : 

" To answer what you have done us the honor publicly to announce 
to us last Wednesday, and for replying to which we begged you give 
us till last Sunday, in which time we have not been able to accomplish 
what we had promised, seeing that several learn nothing from writings 
but only viva voce, and, not even knowing exactly of what there was 
question, returned home without giving any answer. 

" We have the honor to signify to you, that no one can be more 
thankful than we are for the kindness that King George, whom we 
recognize as the lawful sovereign of Great Britain, so graciously shows 
us, under whose rule it will be for us a real joy to remain, as he is 
such a good prince, if we had not since last summer, made engage- 
ments to return under the rule of the King of France, having even 
given our signatures to the officer sent in his name (M. de la Rondo), 
contrary to which we cannot act, until Their two Majesties of France 
and England have disposed of us otherwise. However, we bind our- 
selves with pleasure and gratefulness, while we remain here in 
Acadia, to do or undertake nothing against nis Britannic Majesty, 
King George, of whose proclamation to the crown we are witnesses, 
which was made by you, sirs, in presence of the inhabitants of the 
said places, at Mines, this 12th of March 1715, we, the undersigned, 
acting and being authorized by all the inhabitants to act according 
to the power of attorney which they have given us. 

(Signed) Jacques Le Blanc, Antoine Le Blanc, Charles Babin, 
Jassemin, Pnilippe Melanyon, Claude Landry, Pierre Terriot, Rene 
Le Blanc, Pierre Richard, Jacques Le Blanc, Francois Rimbaut, 
Germain Terriau, Jean Le Blanc, Martin Aucoin, etc., etc." 

We have also the reply of the Acadians of Beauhassin ; 
its purport is exactly the same; it is signed by Michel 
Poirier, Martin Richard, Michel Bourg, Charles Bour- 
geois, Francois Doucet, Jean Cyr, Alexis Cormier, as 
arbiters for the whole population. 

Those of Port Royal seem to have acted otherwise. 
Instead of refusing the oath presented to them, they 
proposed another formula as follows : — 

"I sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and main- 
tain a true allegiance to His Majesty, King George, as long as I shall 



THE OATH REQUIRED. 103 

be in Acadia or Nova Scotia: and [I stipulate] that I shall be per- 
mitted to withdraw wheresoever I shall think fit with all my mov- 
able goods and effects, when I shall think fit, without any one being 
able to hinder me." 

It is signed by thirty-six names, twenty of which are 
marked with crosses, and appears to have been accepted 
by Caulfield. 

Without being very explicit, these documents hint at 
many things. One sees clearly that French delegates 
had some months previous conferred with Governor 
Nicholson ; that the question of the departure of the 
Acadians had been referred to the Queen, and that the 
oath offered them could not be taken into consideration 
before this decision. The publishing of these documents 
would have been a key to guide the reader in researches 
which would have revealed what we have set forth else- 
where, and what the volume of the archives concealed 
from view. 

Thus, these documents confirm anew on certain points 
those which I have produced, and overthrow the vague 
insinuation of Caulfield, when he says : " having, as I 
am informed, refused to quit this colony entirely and to 
settle under the French government." He seems to 
wish to insinuate thereby that he gave orders to the 
Acadians to take the oath or to leave, and thus he mis- 
represents their situation to the Lords of Trade. His in- 
structions to Capoon and Button show nothing of the 
kind ; the replies of the inhabitants prove the contrary ; 
and a subsequent letter to the Lords of Trade shows 
that he considered the departure of the Acadians as a 
calamity. It is therefore ridiculous to suppose that he 
gave such orders and received such replies. Moreover, 
we have seen by several documents that the greater 



104 THE OATH REQUIRED. 

number of the Acadians, in this year 1715, did not even 
sow their lands, so truly did they expect to leave in the 
course of the summer. And, if he had given such 
orders, he would be so much the more culpable, since he 
knew that, a few months before, this question of the 
departure had been referred by Nicholson to the decision 
of the Queen, and that the reply had not yet been given. 

The only means of reconciling his insinuation with 
possible facts would be to attribute such a reply, I mean 
the refusal to depart, to some inhabitants of Penobscot 
or of the St. John River, where the Messrs. Oapoon and 
Button likewise betook themselves to have the oath 
taken. These were upon a territory that France 
claimed ; whence their declaration that they would not 
leave the country. This is the only possible interpreta- 
tion that I see, otherwise his assertion, " that most of them 
are quitting the collonny " would be contradictory and 
absurd. 

In May of the following year Caulfield writes to the 
Lords of Trade : " I received a letter from ye Acadians 
of Mines of their resolution to continue in this govern- 
ment, and are making all preparations for improvements 
as formerly, and they seem impatient to hear what is 
determined on their behalf." * 

This letter might seem contradictory; but as the last 
part shows us that the Acadians were impatient to know 
the decision respecting the questions submitted to the 
Queen by Nicholson, it must be inferred that they were 
always determined to depart as soon as this reply would 
be known and the means afforded them for departing ; 
else, why would they have been impatient for a reply 
which was to decide their departure, if their intention 

* This letter is omitted in the volume of the Archives. 



A RESERVE TO THE OATH WANTED. 105 

was to remain in any case ? The first part, then, means 
that they agreed to prolong their sojourn till after the 
harvest (they had not sown the preceding year). 

In the ensuing October (1716), writing to the Lords 
of Trade, he informs them that he has proposed the oath 
to the Acadians and sends them their replies.* We infer 
therefrom that they reiterated their determination to 
leave the country, for he adds : " at the same time I am 
persuaded it will be with reluctancy they leave the coun- 
try." 

Caulfield was replaced as Lieutenant-Governor by 
John Doucette (1717). Addressing first the inhabit- 
ants of Annapolis, the latter severely enjoined them to 
take the oath according to the formula which he com- 
municated to them. Tired of waiting in vain for a 
response to the questions submitted to the Queen by 
Nicholson, despairing of ever obtaining the facilities 
necessary to their transmigration, they answered that 
they all desired to come to a common decision, and for 
that purpose it was advisable to have all the inhabitants 
of the other localities assembled at the same time : 

"For the present we can only answer, that we shall be ready to 
carry into effect the demand proposed to us, as soon as His Majesty 
shall have done us the favor of providing some means of sheltering us 
from the Indians, who are always ready to do all kinds of mischief, 
proofs of which have been afforded on many occasions since the peace. 

" That unless we are protected from them, we cannot take the oath 
demanded without exposing ourselves to have our throats cut in our 
houses at any time, which they have already threatened to do. 

" In case other means cannot be found, we are ready to take an 
oath that we will take up arms neither against His Britannic Majesty 
nor against France, nor against any of their subjects or allies." 

Up to that time the Acadians had refused to accept 
any oath that tied them to the country ; they wished to 

* Documents omitted in the volume of the Archives. 



106 A KESEEVE TO THE OATH WANTED. 

depart and had been waiting to be enabled to do so. 
From that moment they no longer refused this oath, 
provided a clause were inserted exempting them from 
bearing arms against the French or Indians, their allies. 

The situation presents no difficulties. Either they 
must be allowed to leave with their goods and cattle, as 
signified by the treaty and the letter of the Queen, and 
obstacles must be removed and the assistance requisite 
for their transmigration granted them, or the conditions 
they imposed on their sojourn in the country must be 
accepted. It might have been disagreeable to have con- 
ditions imposed by poor peasants ; but either this must 
be endured or the inconveniences which their departure 
entailed, at least if justice should regulate the relations 
between the high and the low, between the weak and 
the strong. Their conditions were certainly not friv- 
olous. The only enemy that England had to combat in 
these places was Fiance. Without the acceptance of 
this condition they could be obliged to take up arms 
against their compatriots and still worse against their 
brethren, their relations who resided on the north side 
of the Bay of Fundy at River St. John, Chipody, Peti- 
codiac, Memramcook and even at Beaubassin on a 
territory which, it is true, was disputed, but which might 
eventually be adjudged to France by the commission 
appointed to decide thereon* 

Nothing was more reasonable than the exemption 
which they claimed, especially when they were deprived 
of the right of going away ; and those who treat their 
claim as frivolous have evidently never sounded their in- 
most hearts to see what would be their sentiments in a 
similar situation. Later on we shall find that the Ameri- 
can colonists, who established themselves in 1760 on the 



A RESERVE TO THE OATH WANTED. 107 

lands of the Acadians, were exempted from bearing 
arms against their brethren of New England at the time 
of the war of independence; but in that case it was 
deemed quite natural to grant them this exemption. Not 
without heart-rending grief had the Acadians resolved 
to leave their country, their property, these abodes of 
their childhood bedewed by the sweat of several genera- 
tions. Oh ! assuredly, they would have preferred by far 
to remain ; but in those days of prejudice, intolerance and 
absolutism, they feared the caprice of their governors, 
they feared that, sooner or later, obstacles would be 
raised to the free exercise of their religion. Will it 
be said that their fears were not reasonable, seeing that 
for three years they had been retained by force in violation 
of a treaty, at a time when England had not yet emerged 
from the most intolerant period of her history? They 
might perhaps run these risks, but, at least, they did not 
wish to have to combat their fellow-countrymen and 
their brethren ; they wished to put themselves in a 
position to be able at any time to quit the country, if 
the conditions imposed by them should be violated. 
Upon sufficient reflection we shall find that the senti- 
ments that actuated them arose from the noblest of 
motives. This persistency in refusing during forty years 
any oath that exposed them to be obliged to combat 
their compatriots, does an honor to them of which their 
descendants may rightly be proud. Parkman could 
carelessly assert that they were " weak of purpose ;" 
but when there was question of contravening the ele- 
mentary dictates of human nature, or of conscience, 
then this firmness energetically faced consequences from 
which men of our civilized time and probably Parkman 
himself would shrink. 



108 A RESERVE TO THE OATH WANTED. 

It was still easier for England to grant their demands, 
as was done in 1730, than for the Acadians not to make 
them. In their simplicity, they thought perhaps that in. 
these proposals they had found a very acceptable middle 
term, which, while allaying their apprehensions, would 
permit them to preserve their property and their father- 
land. It was a proposal that could be considered, dis- 
cussed and met by another proposal. Could not the local 
authorities effect a compromise ? could they not make al- 
lowance for such justifiable repugnance, for the obstacles 
opposed to the execution of a right so evident as was 
that of their departure ? could they not, I ask, limit this 
exemption of bearing arms to a definite length of time ? 
But no; no concession ! "We are the authority, and 
we do not treat with private individuals. You shall not 
depart, and you must take the oath without reserve, you 
must depend on our good pleasure." 

Moreover, if they felt no such natural repugnance to 
fighting the Indians as they felt to fighting their own 
countrymen, their own safety led them to shun all 
hostility to the savage. We have seen that Vetch and 
Caulfield were of opinion that there would be no security 
for English colonists to settle in the country on account 
of the hostility of the Indians. Would it have been other- 
wise with the Acadians, if they had been forced to take 
up arms against the Indians ? There were certainly be- 
tween them friendly ties which dated far back ; but what 
would these ties have availed under these new circum- 
stances ? Does not our friend or ally of to-day become 
our enemy to-morrow, if he fights against us ? And 
in that event, what greater security could they have 
enjoyed than the English colonists? In view of their 
security the objection to bear arms against the Indians 



A RESERVE TO THE OATH WANTED. 109 

was much more serious than the objection to bear them 
against the French. What did they really demand, 
when answering the summons to take the oath ? Noth- 
ing more than this reasonable agreement : " Find 
some means to protect us against the Indians, and we 
ask no exemption with regard to them, in spite of the 
threats which they use against us every day. In de- 
fault of this means, we will agree to remain in the coun- 
try and take the oath of allegiance, provided we be ex- 
empt from any obligation to bear arms against the 
French and the Indians." 

Certain historians speak of the efforts made by French 
authorities to prevail on the Acadians to emigrate, as 
if, by doing so, they had been guilty of reprehensible 
intrigues, unworthy of a great nation. It may be ac- 
counted ingenious to get quit of one accusation by an- 
other ; there are always some people who let themselves 
be duped by any subterfuge, however gross it be. That 
the French made efforts to engage the Acadians to take 
advantage of the clauses of the treaty, is a fact not to 
be doubted. That was their right and their interest, as 
it was their duty ; the Acadians having decided to urge 
the English authorities to grant all the facilities re- 
quisite for their departure, France was a party to the 
treaty, and, in virtue of this, she had the obligation to 
protect her former subjects against any violation of those 
clauses which were profitable to them ; and, if France 
is to be blamed, it is for not having urged the matter 
with sufficient energy, when the Acadians so earnestly 
claimed her support, and when her own interests were 
all in favor of it. It has been pretended that France, 
under the idea that Acadia might return to her, grad- 
ually fought shy of the departure of the Acadians. 



110 A RESERVE TO THE OATH WANTED. 

That was quite possible ; although her indifference to 
this departure could only be partial, since, besides the 
uncertainty of such an issue as the return to French 
dominion, and the fact that the departure of the Acadians 
would be the ruin of Nova Scotia, there still remained 
a not less urgent interest for France to people her colony 
of Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island and to gain 
strength for future conflicts. 

But, we have not here to consider the interests of 
France and England otherwise than as they explain facts. 
For the moment, I am examining only the question of 
right, and I assert that, for both France and England, 
the lawfulness of their efforts to decide the Acadians to 
depart or not to depart, was limited to persuasive in- 
fluence, and that, while France, perhaps on account of 
circumstances, employed only this expedient, the English 
authorities used every unlawful means that ruse and force 
could suggest. Such is the difference, and it is really 
enormous. And yet, we might view all this with a certain 
indulgence, if only the English had taken into account 
their own unlawful conduct in their subsequent proceed- 
ings with regard to the Acadians. 

As a question of fact, the idea of departure was or 
appears to have been spontaneous on the part of the 
Acadians. Port Royal had been in the hands of the 
English for only three months, when they averred, in 
an address to the Governor of Canada, that Governor 
Vetch was treating them as negro slaves, and that they 
desired to move into French territory. Immediately 
after the treaty of Utrecht, it was still, as far as we can 
judge, by a spontaneous movement, that they sent 
delegates to Louisburg to treat this same question. 

After having given the above response of the Aca- 



A RESERVE TO THE OATH WANTED. Ill 

dians to the summons of Governor Doucette, the Com- 
piler plunges us again into darkness by letting us re- 
main ignorant of what ensued. 

We can here clearly perceive an omission of five 
letters, three of which are from the Governor himself 
and two replies, one from Abbe Pain, cure des Mines, 
the other from Mr. de Brouillan, governor of Cape Bre- 
ton.* By the former's reply we may judge what was 
the drift of the latter's answer. 

Mines, 29 March, 1718. 
" I have received the letter, with which you honored me, under 
date of Dec. 5, 1717. I have the honor to signify to you, sir, that 
these Acadians must be sufficiently acquainted with their duties and 
obligations without needing my help for what you desire me to do with 
regard to them. . . . Allow me to declare to you, so that you may 
have nothing to say against my behavior in this matter, that I am 
resolved to give no advice for or against the measure : thus you will 
recognize their natural intentions," etc., etc. 

Felix Pain. 

From this reply it appears evident that the Governor 
solicited the concurrence of this priest to influence the 
Acadians in the direction of an unconditional oath. In 
justice we must say that he declares himself satisfied 
with this reply, and with the priest's intention not to 
meddle with temporal affairs. We have likewise the 
reply of the governor of Cape Breton, and it confirms 
all that I have previously said respecting the obstacles 
opposed to the departure of the Acadians. 

Louisburg, 21 July, 1718. 

" Concerning your complaints that the inhabitants of Acadia had 
not departed as agreed upon, and that this delay has caused loss to 
His Britannic Majesty, you must have known, sir, the impossibility 
in which Mr. Nicholson and other rulers of Acadia have put them of 
executing what had been agreed upon; some not wishing to let them 
carry away their effects, and the others not wishing us to send them 

* Colonial Records, N. S., Vol. II. 



112 A BESERVE TO THE OATH WANTED. 

• 
the rigging to equip the little ships they had built, and which in con- 
sequence they were obliged to sell almost for nothing to English mer- 
chants. I will not fail to inform the King my master of all you re- 
mark to me thereon, so that he may give the orders that he will judge 
proper." 






GOVERNOR PHILIPPS'S ORDERS. 113 



CHAPTER V. 

Administration of Philipps (1720-1722)— Taking the required oath 
of allegiance or departure within four months without carry- 
ing away anything — Decision to depart — Disappointment of 
Philipps — New omissions of the Compiler — The Acadians 
undertake to open a road in order to effectuate their departure 
— Philipps orders the suspension of the works — Prolongation 
of the delay — Cajoleries to keep back the Acadians — Import- 
ant letter of the Secretary of State Craggs — Parkman. 

In 1720 General Philipps, who in reality had already- 
been for almost three years Governor of Nova Scotia, 
came to Annapolis to take charge of his province. He 
was invested with more ample jurisdiction than his 
predecessors, and his high position in the army added 
weight and importance to his authority. At first he 
dealt very haughtily with the Acadians. Hardly had 
he arrived when he issued a proclamation ordering them 
to take the oath without reserve or to leave the country 
within four months, without being able either to dis- 
pose of their goods or to transport them. " It is ex- 
pressly prohibited to those who will choose to leave the 
country to sell, dispose or bring with them any of their 
effects." These conditions were excessively hard. Is 
that the reason why the Compiler omits this important 
document, this proclamation ? 

Thus the temporizing plan invented by Vetch, and 
continued by Nicholson and his successors, attained the 
desired result. The only fault of the Acadians was 



114 GOVERNOR PHILIPPS'S ORDERS. 

their having let themselves be duped and their having 
so meekly awaited a reply, which the rulers took good 
care not to give them. 

Philipps's intention was evident. He well knew that, 
without means of transport, the Acadians could not de- 
part, especially on such short notice. He believed that 
they were so attached to their property that his prohi- 
bition to carry away anything with them would force 
them to accept his terms of the oath without reserve, 
and even all the conditions that he would be pleased to 
exact. He was, however, deceived. Nevertheless, such 
severe orders spread consternation all around ; the agita- 
tion was most violent ; a prompt decision was imperative. 
They replied in substance as follows : * " We cannot 
take the oath which you demand of us, and the question 
is still more difficult with regard to the Indians than 
to the French, because the former daily threaten us 
with revenge if our reservation do not extend to them. 
Since you cannot grant us this reservation, there only 
remains to us the alternative of retiring from the coun- 
try even on the hard conditions you impose, life being 
dearer to us than all our goods. As the sowing season 
has just elapsed, and there remains hardly any more 
grain to nourish our families, the only favor we beg of 
you is to prolong the delay a little, so as to give us time 
to gather in our grain and permission to carry it away 
with us, and also to make use of the vehicles that we 
own or of those we might make or otherwise procure, 
hoping that Your Excellency will permit us to send to 
Cape Breton Island to ask help for our departure." 

I have in hand, relating to these facts, six documents 
or letters, all most important and absolutely indis- 

* Col. Records, N. S., vol. 3. 



GOVERNOR PHILIPPS'S ORDERS. 115 

pensable for the clear understanding of these events. 
They consist of a reply of Father Justinian to Philipps, 
30th April, 1720 ; two memorials of the Acadians of 
Annapolis and Mines to Philipps, both presented May 
26th, 1720; a letter of the Governor of Louisburg to 
Philipps, June 8th, 1720 ; a letter of the Acadians to 
the Governor of Louisburg and the latter's reply. None 
of these documents are found in the volume of the 
Archives, and yet the first four are found in the Colonial 
Records in London, just alongside those which the Com- 
piler produces ; his volume contains all the letters of 
Philipps to the persons mentioned above, but not a 
single one of the replies. Oh ! I am wrong ; there is 
one, not here mentioned, and it is the one that is the 
worst drawn up, the least explicit. Is that the reason 
why it is there ? Is that also the reason why we find in 
his volume a letter of the Acadians to the Governor of 
Louisburg, when there was another far superior to it as 
a statement of the situation. The Compiler renders his 
case more complicated by the insertion of this document, 
for this letter of the Acadians to the Governor of Louis- 
burg, it will be understood, could not reasonably be 
found in the archives either of Halifax or of London ; it 
could be had only in the archives of the Marine in Paris. 
Did he go there to ferret it out ? If so, then, he studied 
those archives, and why in the world did he go out of 
his way, while he was passing over so many important 
documents in London, which should have been brought 
to Halifax ? However, not to run the risk of being un- 
just to him, I will not hold him responsible for any other 
omissions than those relative to the archives of these 
two last places. 

In spite of my desire to fill up the void that the Com- 



116 OBSTACLES TO DEPARTURE. 

piler has left, in spite of the importance of the documents 
omitted, I shall present only short extracts. The letter 
addressed by the Acadians to the Governor of Louisburg 
contains among other things the following : 

"You are, sir, aware of the difficulties opposed to our departure 
when we petitioned for it, and the impossibility in which we were, to 
accomplish what was demanded of us. And yet now they wish to 
constrain us to take this oath, or to abandon the country, and it is 
impossible to do either. . . We are resolved not to take this oath im- 
posed upon us, but we cannot quit the country without suitable 
facilities, such as were promised to us by the Court of France and re- 
fused by the Court of England. Our situation is painful and per- 
plexing, and we beseech you to assist us." 

In his reply to Philipps, Mr. de Brouillun, governor 
of Louisburg, says : 

"Allow me to state, that the inaction of the Acadians neither can 
nor should be imputed to them, both on account of their want of 
the assistance essentially requisite for their transmigration, and on 
account of the obstacles which the Governors, general or local, who 
preceded you, have put in their way. 

11 I cannot, moreover, refrain from representing to you that the 
clauses of your proclamation that refer to the term and the circum- 
stances of their departure seem to me but little in keeping with ordinary 
kindness, especially after a treaty and an agreement of mutual good 
faith between Queen Anne and King Louis XIV., a treaty that ha>> 
been executed in its entirety by France and partially by England. 

" You are aware, sir, that by this agreement the lot of the inhabit- 
ants of Acadia was to be the same as that of the inhabitants of Plais- 
ance. It were impossible to add to the kindness and sincerity with 
which this evacuation of Plaisance was accomplished, and I have the 
honor to represent to you, that nothing could be harsher than the 
extremity or rather the impossibility to which these poor people 
would be reduced, should you not consent to be less severe for the 
time and the manner in which you exact their departure." 

To prove the obstacles opposed to the departure of 
the Acadians, I have quoted, so far, more than twenty 



OBSTACLES TO DEPARTURE. 117 

documents, all of which are omitted in the volume of 
the Archives. What is there in this volume against 
these clear and precise affirmations? Nothing. No- 
where do we find that these affirmations have been 
contradicted in reply to those who made them. Neither 
Nicholson nor Doucette replied to the affirmations of 
Costabelle and de Brouillan. The only passage that looks 
like a formal contradiction of these affirmations is found 
in a letter of Philipps to the Lords of Trade, in which 
he says : 

11 At the time of the surrender of the country, it was stipulated in 
behalf of the Acadians, to have their choice, either to remain in the 
Province if they would transfer their allegiance, or, in case of the al- 
ternative, to dispose of their estate and effects to the best advantage ; 
to determine which, one year's time was allowed them ; but, at the 
expiration thereof, finding their new masters in no condition to 
oblige them to the observance of one or the other, they have 
remained." 

Philipps himself knew nothing of the obstacles we have 
mentioned ; he could, doubtless, be informed by Vetch, 
Caulfield, Doucette, and other officers of the garrison ; 
but it is clear that they were not eager to accuse 
themselves of their own trickery. We may judge of the 
credit we should give to the declaration of Philipps by 
the trouble he takes to disfigure the treaty he had under 
his eyes. Clearly, the treaty gave the Acadians the right 
to carry away their movable effects, their cattle, etc. 
Philipps converted this clause into a right to sell or 
dispose of them, and nothing more. If he erred so 
grossly as to the terms of a treaty, what are we to think 
of his second-hand assertions picked up from persons 
interested in deceiving him ? This prohibition to carry 
anything away with them was not only inhuman, it was 



118 ACADIANS MAKE A ROAD. 

also a fraud. He well knew that, since they were the 
only inhabitants of the country, they would have no one 
to whom they might sell their goods in case they de- 
parted, and that is why he chose this means of attaining 
his end, and preventing their departure. He was soon 
to be convinced that the people about him had deceived 
him respecting the reasons that had prevented their 
departure, and that he deceived himself, if he fancied 
his barbarous orders were going to produce the result 
he expected. 

As the Acadians no longer hoped to work upon the 
Governor's determination, as they no longer hoped either 
for timely help or for a prolongation of the appointed 
delay, they set to work to devise ways and means to 
effect their departure. Unable to withdraw in ships, 
they had no other alternative than the land route ; but, 
for that, they would be obliged to open new roads where 
there were none. 

The Beaubassin people could easily withdraw by Bay 
Verte, but the case was otherwise with those of Mines, 
and especially of Annapolis. Between these two places 
there was a space of from twenty to thirty miles which 
had never yet been opened to vehicles. 

To this point the Acadians of Mines first directed 
their efforts, and thus came to the assistance of their 
Annapolis brethren. All the able-bodied population 
set resolutely to work, and the road-making was rapidly 
advancing. In presence of this determination to leave 
the country, which was shown in so unmistakable a 
way, Philipps was alarmed ; but what could be done ? 
Could he reasonably oppose these works, indispensable 
as they were to the transmigration ? Certainly not, 
since it was the only means left them to depart and to 



PHILTPPS FORBIDS ROAD-MAKING. 119 

conform to the alternative of his proclamation ! 

And, nevertheless, they must not be allowed to depart ! 
His conduct would be incredible, had I not before me 
the official documents that establish indisputably the 
means which Philipps used to balk the Acadians once 
more, as had previously done Vetch, Nicholson and 
Caulfield. There was only one means ; it was to forbid 
the continuation of these works ; he did so. 

" At a Council held, &c, &c. 
" Present : 

11 His Honor Lieut.-Governor Armstrong, &c, &c, <fcc. 

" The Honorable Lieut.-Governor acquainted the Board, that His 
Excellency, General Philipps, having advice that the Acadians of this 
river are cutting a road from here to Mines, which gives him suspicion 
that they design by it either to molest this place, or to drive off their 
cattle and carry their effects from hence by that way, in order to 
settle in a body, either there or at Beaubassin, and stand in defiance 
of the Government, Advised and agreed : 

" That His Excellency be desired to send his special orders to the 
Acadians of this river and Mines not to cut any such road without 
having His Excellency's leave in writing." 

We have also the proclamation drawn up conformably 
to the above order-in-council. In this proclamation he 
adds : "And I do further forbid any persons to quit their 
habitations clandestinely and without my leave" 

Naturally, as might be expected, the order was drawn 
up as if he supposed other designs than that of quitting 
the country, but one's perceptions would have to be very 
dull indeed not to understand the true sense of what 
wfls meant by this order, " not to cut a road nor quit 
their habitations without leave." 

Philipps and his council were well aware that their 
object could not have been to molest anybody, but merely 
to leave the country. When writing to the Lords of 



120 VEXATIOUS PROHIBITIONS 

Trade, he does not feel constrained to disguise his pur- 
pose under false pretexts ; hence, in rendering an ac- 
count of these events, he does not make a mystery of their 
intention, which, he says, was, or must have been, to 
leave the country by way of Bay Verte : " Being joined 
in a body, " they can march off at their leisure, by the way 
of the Bay Verte with their effects, and destroy what they 
leave behind, without danger of being molested by the 
garrison." So, as is clearly shown, in this opening of a 
road, Philipps did not see anything but the means and 
the design of leaving the country. His fear was not 
that his garrison might be molested by them, but, on 
the contrary, that his garrison might not be able to 
molest them and prevent their marching off. The case 
is widely different. 

It reminds us somewhat of the fable of the crocodile 
and the child : — " Why do you shed tears at the lam- 
entations of this child ? Have you of late become so 
tender-hearted?" was remarked to him. — "I weep," 
retorted the crocodile, " because I could not reach him 
and swallow him up." 

It was the settled fate of the Acadians that they 
should not leave the country except by deportation. 
Once more were they detained against their will. An 
alternative had been offered them, but eventually they 
had none. At first, they had thought they could leave 
in English vessels ; these were refused. They had 
asked that French ships might be allowed to enter the 
ports of Acadia ; this was opposed. Having constructed 
small vessels, they wished to procure the necessary 
equipment at Louisburg ; this was forbidden ; at Boston, 
forbidden again. This time the order to take away 
nothing extended even to vehicles, and, as that did not 



VEXATIOUS PROHIBITIONS. 121 

suffice to deter them, the route by land was likewise 
forbidden. There still remained the air route ; but the 
manageable balloons of the twentieth century, nay, 
even the primitive fire-balloons had not yet been in- 
vented. The letter of Queen Anne extended their right 
to the selling of their immovable property, but, with 
obstacle on obstacle, restriction on restriction, ruse on 
ruse, the result was this much simplified statement : "If 
you go away, you shall not take even your effects with 
you." And to strike the lowest note of the scale: "-Go 
away, if you like, but you shall not take away even your 
bodies ; your bones will have to remain here. When 
the time for your departure shall come, we ourselves 
will see to your transportation, and we will scatter you 
upon all the shores of the new world." Considered in 
all its naked reality, such was the situation. 

Only peaceable persons, as they were, could have sub- 
mitted to so many unjust impositions. They could put on 
foot six times more fighting men than were numbered in 
the garrison of Annapolis. The decision of the Aca- 
dians had rendered Philipps's situation very perplexing. 
In the same letter to the Lords of Trade he writes : 

" For the sake of gaining time, and keeping all things quiet till I 
have the honor of your further commands in what manner to act, I 
have thought it most for His Majesty's service to send home the 
Acadian deputies with smooth words and promises of enlargement of 
time." 

He ends his letter as follows : 

" They say they will oblige themselves to be good subjects in every 
respect, excepting that of taking up arms against the French and 
Indians. . . . And I would humbly propose that if an oath were 
formed for them to take, whereby they should oblige themselves to 
take up arms against the Indians, if required, etc., etc., how far this 
may be thought to bind them." 



122 PHILIPPS'S HUMILIATION. 

It is easy to see, while following this correspondence 
of Philipps with the Secretary of State and the Lords of 
Trade, that he was profoundly humiliated by his want 
of success. He had flattered himself that his high posi- 
tion in the army, the renown of his name, would over- 
throw all the obstacles that a little simple and ignorant 
population might oppose to him. Arriving with the 
air of a conqueror, he had issued a pompous and severe 
proclamation which admitted of no reply ; then he had 
encountered difficulties which he could have smoothed 
away, but which he had only increased by his demeanor. 
He would have liked to retrace his steps and to resort 
to conciliation, but he had sown mistrust and was reap- 
ing alarm. He had thought that these Acadians were 
so attached to their goods that the short delay granted 
them to leave the country and the prohibition to take 
away their effects would infallibly determine them to 
accept the proposed oath. As to that, he had fallen into 
the same error as Nicholson, and, like him, he found 
himself obliged to prevent at any price the departure of 
the Acadians, with this difference, that Nicholson could 
use subterfuges, while he had not even this resource. 
His own order, which forbade the inhabitants to open a 
road leading out of the country, while his proclamation 
to evacuate it was still fresh, must have jarred his sense 
of consistency. And, what a humiliation here for a man 
that deserved, I believe, on other occasions, the reputa- 
tion of being able, affable and conciliating. 

The more meek and amiable he became towards the 
Acadians, the greater was his bitterness and the more 
malevolent his insinuations with regard to them in his 
correspondence. He had suffered failure. To justify 
or attenuate it, he did what has always been done, what 



HIS BITTERNESS. 123 

is still done : he laid the blame on others. In order to 
do so, he had to represent the Acadians as headstrong, 
ungovernable, directed by "bigoted priests;" this he 
did to the best of his ability. 

" They will never, said he, in substance, make good subjects. They 
cannot be let go now at least : their departure, if they went to swell 
the colony of Cape Breton, would render our neighbors too power- 
ful ; we need them to erect our fortifications and to provision our 
forts, " till the English are powerful enough of themselves to go on, 
and they must not withdraw before a considerable number of 
British subjects be settled in their stead. On the other hand, if 
they withdraw in spite of us, a great many fine possessions will be- 
come vacant. I believe it will not be difficult to draw as many people 
almost from New England as would supply their room, if it were not 
robbing a neighboring colony without gaining much by the ex- 
change ; therefore, hope there are schemes forming at Home, to set- 
tle the country with British subjects in the spring, before which time 
these inhabitants do not think of moving, having the benefit of enlarge- 
ment of time I granted, until I shall receive your further commands. 
Wliat is to be apprehended in the resettling these farms is disturbance 
from the Indians, who do not like of the Acadians going off, and will 
not want prompting to mischief." 

In his vexation Philipps had shown only the dark 
side, and had painted it so vividly as to affect the 
Lords of Trade, who wrote under date of December 
20th, 1720 : 

" As to the Acadians of Nova Scotia, who appear so 

watering in their inclinations, we are apprehensive they will never be- 
come good subjects to His Majesty. . . . We are of opinion they ought 
to be removed as soon as the forces which we have proposed to be sent 
to you shall arrive in your Province; but as you are not to attempt 
their removal without His Majesty" 1 s positive order for that purpose, 
you will do well in the meanwhile, to continue the same prudent and 
cautious conduct towards them, to endeavor to undeceive them con- 
cerning the exercise of their religion which will doubtless be allowed 
them if it should be thought proper to let them stayivhere they are.'" ' 

*Parkman had this document before him. For an historian of fifty 
years standing he should have eagerly seized a letter that threw so' much 
light on history ; it was a real tit-bit .' . , but it was not of the right kind. 



124 CKAGGS TO PHILIPPS. 

On reading this one feels as though a leaden cloak 
were falling on his shoulders, and as though there was 
not enough air to breathe freely. The sinister project 
of the deportation has just been hatched. A cold shiver 
runs down one's spine. One fancies he hears the 
first blasts of the trumpet that was to order the embark 
ation. 

I append, by way of elucidation, a version of the same 
letter in familiar style : 

" My Dear Philipps : 

" I see you do not get the better of the Acadians as you expected 
before your departure. It is singular all the same that these people 
should have preferred to lose their goods rather than be exposed to 
fight against their brethren. This sentimentality is stupid. These 
people are evidently too much attached to their fellow-countrymen 
and to their religion ever to make true Englishmen. It must be 
avowed your position was deucedly critical ; it was very difficult to 
prevent them from departing, after having left the bargain to their 
choice. However, you did well to act thus, it was your only resource. 
The treaty be hanged ! Don't bother about justice and other baubles 
any more than Nicholson and Vetch did ; those things will not ad- 
vance our interests. Their departure will, doubtless, increase the 
power of France ; it must not be so ; they must eventually be trans- 
ported to some place, where, mingling with our subjects, they will 
soon lose their language, their religion and the remembrance of the 
past, to become true Englishmen. For the moment, we are too weak 
to undertake this deportation ; but we purpose effecting it in the 
spring time, when we shall have sent to you the required troops. Do 
nothing of your own accord before we have given you orders. Mean- 
while, my dear friend, lay aside your high and mighty airs, show 
yourself affable and kind towards them. Encourage them with any 
hopes you choose, say what you like ; provided you obtain the desired 
end, which is none other than to prevent their departure, you will 
merit our gratitude. 

44 Yours, 

" Craggs, 
41 Secretary of State. 

44 N. B.— Make them believe that we shall leave them the free exer- 



FIPwST HINT OF DEPORTATION. 125 

cise of their religion ; we shall see later on what we shall do on this 
score, if it be decided to leave them in the country. In this case it is 
probable we shall allow them the free exercise of their religion. 

" p. S. — There is a great storm brewing against Aislabie, Stanhope 
and myself relatively to the South Sea Co. ... I am all of a tremble 
at it. . . . Must I. . . . 

" Craggs * 

The reader will find the document I have just para- 
phrased hardly agrees with the declaration of my intro- 
ductory remarks, exonerating the home government from 
all complicity in this iniquitous deportation. It was, in- 
deed, a Secretary of State who had resolved to execute 
it, but a man of the stamp of Craggs is rarely met with 
in history. There was certainly no question here of a 
government project, but of the scheme of a single indi- 
vidual, who had begun his career by a fraud that 
brought him to the Tower, and ended it by another 
which ought to have sent him back thither. Thus, the 
deportation was conceived by a barber who became 
Secretary of State, and it was executed thirty-five years 
later by a house-painter who became Provincial Gov- 
ernor. It was conceived by a plunderer and executed 
for the sake of plunder. One man died as he was plan- 
ning it, the other as he was realizing it. The one had 
been shut up in the Tower, and avoided a return thither 
by an opportune death ; the other escaped the same fate 
in the same manner. Under such exceptional circum- 
stances I think it would be unjust to throw the 

* Craggs had begun life as a barber. He then became a footman, and, 
later on, an army clothier. His dealings as such being investigated, he re- 
fused to produce his books and was sent to the Tower. Twenty-two years 
later he was Secretary of State, with Aislabie as leader of the House of 
Commons. When the South Sea Bubble exploded, Aislabie was expelled 
from the House for his shameful conduct in connection with the famous 
Bubble. Craggs escaped the same fate by a timely death. Green, in his 
history, says that he died of terror at the punishment he expected to 
meet. 



126 ACADIANS PEACEABLE. 

responsibility of this document on the home government 
in virtue of the ministerial responsibility. It was none 
the less an unfortunate deed; for Lawrence, who knew 
of it, took pattern from it ; he saw or thought he saw 
therein his justification. 

The good-natured souls who have pitied the deporta- 
tion and sad fate of the Acadians, says Rameau, have no 
need, by way of explaining the fact, to credit them with 
imaginary crimes. After this document, it may be said 
that the proscription was not a deed improvised in 
anger: it was premeditated as early as 1720. Lawrence, 
upon whom this crime is charged, was acquainted with 
this document. 

It cannot be said that the Acadians had been rebel- 
lious, nor even that they had had recourse to violence, 
since their submission embraced even obedience to the 
order to depart without taking away anything, and to the 
still more unjust order that put a stop to their depart- 
ure, and this, when they were powerful enough to snap 
their fingers at authority. Examples of such peaceable 
dispositions are very rare in history. Their extreme 
peaceableness was their misfortune. Had they not been 
so meek, they would have had to be let go. 

This document, Rameau says again, would suffice, in 
default of others, to show what nervous apprehension 
the Board of Trade in Europe and the Governor of 
Annapolis in America felt lest the Acadians escape from 
their control. They wish at all costs to avoid this 
misfortune ; so, in spite of the bitter anger which 
Philipps's disappointment caused him, see how he 
lavishes kind words upon them, with what insinuating 
sweetness, while praising the tenderness of King George, 
he slips in those perfidious assurances of liberty, of 



PHILIPPS WHEEDLING. 127 

peacefulness, of religious freedom, in order to protract 
their present condition and make them accept a pro- 
visional tolerance that should not be binding for the 
future, until the favorable hour should strike when they 
might be deported without risk. 

Philipps perfectly understood his instructions ; he, 
who had made his fortune amid the intrigues of the court, 
was now altogether on his own ground : he put away 
his great sabre and the high-flown phrases of his first 
appearance on the scene, and continued the policy 
he had just inaugurated : wheedle the Acadians so as to 
make them remain on their lands, exact allegiance if 
the occasion presents itself, if not, then lavish fine 
words without promising anything definite ; keep a 
way open for retreat, so as to prove no promises had ever 
been made, but only attempts at agreement. Thus 
was obtained from the Acadians the desired amount of 
usefulness, by freely granting them tolerance without 
ever affording them any certainty. 

Philipps made this situation last two years more with- 
out allowing their departure, but also without accepting or 
refusing the restricted oath which the Acadians claimed ; 
he still kept them on their lands by protracting their un- 
certainty. He thus reached the year 1722, when he re- 
turned to Europe, leaving in his place Captain Doucette 
as lieutenant-governor. 

In his work entitled " Wolfe and Montcalm " Park- 
man, falling in with the Compiler, affirmed that the 
Acadians had remained in the country of their own free 
will. Since writing what precedes I have noticed in his 
new work, " A Half Century of Conflict," that he has 
modified his first opinions on this subject. It was indeed 
difficult not to yield to evidence that was supported by 



128 PARKMAN RETRACTS. 

such a considerable mass of documents as that collected 
by Casgrain in the " Canada Francois." Howbeit, it is 
with pleasure I give Parkman credit for this implied 
concession. I cannot reasonably expect him to do as 
much with respect to all his other errors, for then it 
would be necessary to destroy almost all that he has 
written on the history of Acadia. 

" Governor Nicholson," says he, " like his predecessor, was resolved 
to keep the Acadians in the Province if he could. This personage, able, 
energetic, headstrong, perverse, unscrupulous, conducted himself even 
towards the English officers and soldiers in a manner that seems un- 
accountable and that kindled their utmost indignation. Towards the 
Acadians his behavior was still worse. . .The Acadians built small ves- 
sels and the French authorities at Louisburg sent them the necessary 
rigging. Nicholson ordered it back, forbade the sale of their lands 
and houses and would not even let them sell their personal effects ; 
coolly setting at naught both the treaty of Utrecht and the letter of 
the Queen. Caulfield and Doucette, his deputies, both in one degree or 
another, followed his example in preventing, so far as they could, the 
emigration of the Acadians. 1 ' 

All that this citation contains is, in a general way, 
true; but, as a question of fact, it is not strictly 
accurate ; thus, Nicholson did not order the Acadians to 
send back the rigging to Louisburg, but forbade them 
to procure any, nor did he forbid them to sell their 
effects, but only to take them away with them. Though 
these variations would be unimportant in an ordinary 
chronicler without such pretensions as Parkman has to 
historic accuracy and fairness, still, it would have been 
better to be absolutely precise, when it was so easy for 
him to be so. 

After having made this concession, apparently so 
frank and candid, let us see how he sets to work to 
nullify it : 



NULLIFIES HIS RETRACTATION. 129 

** If they had wished to emigrate, the English Governor had no 
power to stop them. . . They were armed and far outnumbered the 
English garrison. To say that they wished to leave Acadia, but were 
prevented from so doing by a petty garrison at the other end of the 
Province, so feeble that it could hardly hold Annapolis itself, is an 
unjust reproach upon a people who, though ignorant and weak of 
purpose, were not wanting in physical courage. The truth is, that 
from this time to their forced expatriation, all the Acadians, except 
those of Annapolis, were free to go or stay at will." 

It is perfectly true, as Parkman says, that the Aca- 
dians, except those of Annapolis, had the numerical 
strength to enforce their departure from the country ; 
nor, as is most probable, were they wanting in physical 
courage, and they undoubtedly had the right to act 
thus ; but we must not judge their actions according to 
our own ideas. Parkman, as all this history clearly 
proves, should have understood that these people, these 
ignorant peasants, as he never fails to call them, had, far 
otherwise than we, the love of peace, respect for and 
submission to authorit3 r . Instead of overthrowing by 
force the iniquitous obstacles opposed to their departure, 
they applied to the French authorities to put an end to 
them. In their naive ignorance the stipulations of a 
treaty seemed sacred, and, thought they, eventually 
justice would prevail ; they did not suspect, so well as 
we should, the perverseness of their rulers. It is this 
spirit of submission that later on enabled Lawrence to 
deport them. Would Parkman have it imputed to them 
as a crime? And, because they might have effected 
their departure in spite of the authorities, does this fact 
relieve the authorities from all blame for their unjust 
proceedings ? Did that iniquitous detention oblige the 
Acadians to take the oath exacted of them? Is Mr. 
Parkman's indulgence and commiseration invariably for 



130 REASONS AGAINST DEPARTING. 

the oppressor as against the oppressed? To depart 
without having the requisite facilities for deportation 
meant to leave behind them their effects and their cattle, 
all which was very painful, especially when the right to 
take them away was guaranteed by a treaty. 

There are still other very important considerations to 
which Mr. Parkman, from the snugness of his easy chair, 
did not even take the trouble to advert. Thus, if it be 
true that the Acadians of Beaubassin and Mines had 
sufficient strength to effectuate their departure, and 
they would, I believe, have succeeded therein, it was 
not so for those of Annapolis, as he admits. By with- 
drawing, the former would leave these latter behind them; 
they would leave a large number of their compatriots, 
their relations and brethren at the mercy of a power that 
held out no hopes of equitable treatment. Not being 
able to depart in English, French or even Acadian ves- 
sels, it was expressly to permit those of Annapolis to 
effect a union with themselves that the Acadians of 
Mines had set to work to open a road between the two 
places, in which attempt they were frustrated by an 
order from Philipps. To withdraw thus and leave their 
relations behind would mean a lifelong separation, un- 
less they should chance to meet as adversaries upon the 
field of battle, in case a war should break out between 
France and England. Parkman makes no account of 
this separation, or more probably he did not even think 
of it ; these ignorant people, who were guided in their 
actions by the humane feelings inherent in our nature, 
bore most heavily this separation with all its dreadful 
consequences ; they had weighed and pondered it ; they 
had felt the delicacy of their situation ; they had seen 



REASONS AGAINST DEPARTING. 131 

farther and more correctly than Parkman with all his 
learning. 

Pursuing the same idea Parkman adds : 

" The year had long ago expired, and most of them were still in 
Acadia, unwilling to leave it, yet, refusing to own King George." 

Thus does Parkman endeavor to nullify all the merit 
of his former admission. He had admitted that Vetch, 
Nicholson, Caulfield and Doucette, in one way or an- 
other, did all in their power to render the departure of 
the Acadians impossible, and yet these Acadians, in spite 
of all these efforts, " were unwilling to go." It is very 
hard to reconcile these two conflicting statements, but 
we must be prepared to see Parkman contradict himself 
on one and the same page ; * the public has so eagerly 
bolted his first ten volumes that he ceased to be on his 
guard in the eleventh. After he had said in a general 
way that the Acadians " were unwilling to leave," I find, 
thirteen lines further on, the following, relative to the 
proclamation of Philipps : 

" They protested to M. de Brouillan that they would abandon all 
rather than renounce their religion and their King; at the same time 
they prepared for a general emigration by way of the isthmus and 
Bay Verte, when it would have been impossible to stop them." 

The contradiction is flagrant enough, but it would be 
still more so, if Parkman, by a trick that is familiar to 
him, had not, as it were, cut his sentence in two, so as 
not to let us know what, this time, had prevented the 
departure of the Acadians. We have only to add, in 
order to complete the unfinished sentence, the following 
words: u but they were stopped in their preparations by 

* A Half Century of Conflict, p. 198. 



132 GARBLING 

an order of Governor Philipps, forbidding their cutting 
a road between Annapolis and Mines and forbidding 
their leaving their habitations." This addition is not 
long, and these few words supply the reader with in- 
formation of great importance. By cutting his sentence 
in two, Parkman stopped, so to speak, on the brink of a 
precipice, for I am merely yielding to evidence in saying, 
that the avowal, which the completion of his sentence 
entailed, would have been extremely painful to him. 
Should the reader doubt it, I can assure him that his 
hesitation will be dispelled long before reaching the 
end of this work. — 

And, when Mr. Parkman added : " Yet, refusing to 
own King G-eorge" had he absolutely persisted in in- 
troducing these incorrect terms into his account, he 
might have explained in a few words that the Acadians, 
when they saw how their departure was made impos- 
sible, unanimously offered to Governor Doucette to take 
the oath of allegiance with a clause exempting them 
from bearing arms against the French and the Indians 
their allies ; or simply against the French, if means were 
afforded to protect them against the Indians ; and that, 
from that time up to their deportation, they never refused 
such an oath. Many of Mr. Parkman's readers might 
have found this detail very instructive and very im- 
portant in order to judge of the spirit that animated the 
Acadians. Leaving the public under a contrary impres- 
sion, through omission and misconstruction, was allow- 
ing unjust prejudices against them to circulate ; which 
is equivalent to falsifying history. 



DEPARTURE OF PHILIPPS. 133 



CHAPTER VI. 

Departure of Philipps (1722) — Doucette reassumes his functions 
as lieutenant-governor, which he exercises till 1725 — Total 
absence in the volume of the Archives of documents for this 
period — Armstrong succeeds him — His character — Taking 
of the oath at Annapolis — Captain Bennett and Philipps 
make the tour of the province for the same purpose — Their 
failure — Armstrong confides the same mission to Officer 
Worth — Incomplete success — His report. 

Philipps returned to England altogether disgusted 
with everything : with the ungrateful task that had 
fallen to his lot, with the state of the fortifications, 
with the weakness of the garrison, with the indifference 
of the authorities in regard to his projects, with his own 
inability to enforce obedience. He felt himself humbled 
by his failure. Moreover, this life in an out of the way 
garrison, far from comfort and civilization, coincided so 
little with his tastes of a great lord and courtier that, 
regardless of the general opening of hostilities with the 
Indians, he embarked for England in the course of the 
summer of 1722. He nevertheless remained titular 
governor of the province with all the emoluments of 
his office till the foundation of Halifax in 1749, at 
which time he had nearly attained the age of ninety 
years. 

John Doucette, who had been lieutenant-governor 
some time before the arrival of Philipps, resumed his 
functions, which he exercised till 1725. Oddly enough, 



134 GAP IN THE ARCHIVES. 

the volume of the archives does not contain a single 
document of the period extending from 1722 to 1725. 
Given the partiality of the Compiler and his efforts to 
combine in this volume all that could be prejudicial to 
the Acadians and justify their deportation, here is the 
explanation that seems to me most probable. Philipps, 
for fear of seeing the Acadians escape, had shown him- 
self meek and amiable toward them, and up to his 
departure the burning question of the oath had been 
kept prudently in the shade. The proper thing to do 
was to let several years glide by, to await the favorable 
moment, and, until then, to treat the Acadians with the 
greatest regard. This policy was all the more com- 
mendable because the Indians of Maine were in open 
war and those of Nova Scotia threatened to follow their 
example, and in fact were already committing depreda- 
tions. Under such circumstances Philipps could not 
have failed to recommend strongly to Doucette mainte- 
nance with regard to the Acadians of that same prudence 
and forbearance which he himself had inaugurated. 
The interposition of the governor in the affairs of the 
Acadians became almost null, and that is why his corre- 
spondence contained nothing or almost nothing relative 
to them, and especially nothing that could be turned 
against them. But, some will say, this volume was to 
have been a compilation to serve for the general history 
of the province. That is very true ; but the Compiler 
thought otherwise. For him, as I have said, and the 
thing is evident, this volume was the combination of all 
the documents that could throw some light on the 
reasons that might have called for the deportation; 
and, whatever did not tend to confirm this proof, or 
whatever tended to overthrow it, was extraneous matter. 



GAP IN THE AECHIVES. 135 

So true is this that, up to the foundation of Halifax, 
this volume contains nothing but what relates to the 
Acadians and to their priests ; and, when a letter men- 
tions something that does not relate to them, or some- 
thing that throws discredit on the governor or some 
other important official, this part is systematically sup- 
pressed, and this is done even when the omitted part 
explains or exhibits in a different light the inserted 
part. In this period, from 1722 to 1725, the Acadians, 
conformably to the orders of Philipps, had been left to 
themselves, and the Compiler, finding nothing in 
Doucette's correspondence to support his proofs, found 
nothing worth reproducing. Yet it is certain that 
Doucette must have had regular correspondence with 
the Board of Trade and with Philipps. If we suppose 
the small number of four dispatches a year to the Lords 
of Trade, as many to Philipps and the replies thereto, 
we should have forty-eight documents, of which some, 
though they contained nothing for or against the 
Acadians, might at least be useful for the general 
history of the province. Such had been the intention 
of the legislature. I have seen some of these docu- 
ments, which in fact contained nothing of importance 
to the Acadians. 

In striking contrast with Philipps, Armstrong, who 
succeeded Doucette in 1725, was a man of violent 
temper, of a rough and disorderly cast of mind, alto- 
gether unfit for the functions of a governor, even under 
the most favorable circumstances, and still less suited 
to the task of smoothing out difficulties such as then 
faced him. The most salient feature of his character 
was, however, the capriciousness of his humor. Some- 
times affable and obliging, he was most often so harsh 



136 Armstrong's antecedents. 

and brutal as to provoke officers and soldiers to insult 
him publicly. 

The new governor was that same Captain Armstrong 
concerning whom, ten years before, Lieutenant-Governor 
Caulneld addressed complaints to the Lords of Trade in 
the following terms : 

" I must own 'tis with ye greatest reluctancy immaginable that I 
am obliged to acquaint Your Lordships of ye frequent misbehaviour 
of Captain Armstrong of this garrison towards several inhabitants 
here, and by my next shall transmit to Your Lordships the several com- 
plaints in behalf of ye said inhabitants." 

Invested with absolute power over all the Province, 
he could hardly be expected to do aught else than vex 
and worry it. And, in point of fact, he was continually 
at logger-heads with everybody : with the priests, with 
his officers, with his soldiers, with his council, with each 
member of his council, even more than with the Acadi- 
ans. The volume of the archives, as might be guessed, 
indicates only his quarrels with the priests and the Aca- 
dians, according to the above-mentioned policy of ex- 
cluding whatever might discredit Armstrong and weaken 
the effect of his sayings and doings in regard to them. 
Fortunately, the hostilities of the Indians had ended 
before his arrival at Annapolis ; else he would perhaps 
have plunged the Province into a most deplorable situa- 
tion. At first, he seemed to wish to make Canso the 
seat of his government and assembled there a quorum of 
his councillors ; but, the following year, he established 
himself at Annapolis. 

His nomination to the post of lieutenant-governor had 
alarmed the Acadians. From the moment of his arrival 
at Canso, he spoke of nothing less than crossing Nova 
Scotia in battle array and thus cutting the Gordian 



Armstrong's antecedents. 137 

knot, if only the necessary troops were furnished him. 
Writing to the Secretary of State, he said : 

" I have written to the Government of New England to send me 
sixty Indians of that country, with twelve whale-boats, which, joined 
with so many of our troops and forty men from Commodore St. Lo, 
I intend to take a tour through the Province to humble the villainous 
french inhabitants. . . I hope we shall do our duty and give a good 
account of ourselves." 

All this had no other foundation than the taking of the 
oath, and he relied on terror to exact it. However, he 
did nothing of the sort ; but the Acadians long since 
knew what they might expect from him. In the course 
of the following summer they prepared for a general 
emigration, fully resolved, should circumstances go per- 
mit, not to take any account of the prohibitions that 
might be opposed thereto. Some families withdrew 
that very year to settle in Prince Edward Island, where 
the French government were preparing to receive them. 
In July of that same year Armstrong wrote : 

" They are resolved to quit the Province rather than take the oath, 
and as I am informed, have transported several of their cattle and other 
effects." 

Yielding to his irrepressible temper, he had hoped 
violently to break down all opposition by spreading ter- 
ror around him, and the only result he was obtaining 
was the hatred and contempt of his officers and the de- 
parture of the Acadians. The threatened exodus must 
be stopped, or he would incur a severe reprimand and 
ruin his dearest hopes. 

Was he going to let France strengthen her colony 
with so many useful subjects ? Was he going to let his 
Province be deprived of the only inhabitants that he 



138 AKMSTRONG SENTIMENTAL. 

had to govern? What would people say of him? 
What would become of the government with which he 
was charged, what would become of his own position ? 
All this filled him with fear ; his manner and tactics were 
suddenly changed ; he inveigled the Acadiaus to well- 
prepared meetings, where he spoke feelingly of the great 
advantages they would secure by accepting the oath 
and cordially becoming the loyal subjects of King 
George. Then, as soon as he thought that the favor- 
able moment had come, he proposed to them the taking 
of the oath : 

" He hoped they had come with a full resolution to take the oath 
of fidelity like good subjects, induced with sincere honest principles 
of submission and loyalty to so good and gracious a King, who, upon 
their so doing, due and faithful observation of their sacred oaths, 
had promised them, not only the free exercise of their religion, but, 
even the enjoyment of their estates and other immunities of his own 
free born subjects of Great Britain ; and that for his part, while he 
had the honor to command, his endeavors should always be to main- 
tain to them what His Majesty had so graciously vouchsafed to 
grant. 

"Whereupon, at the request of some of the inhabitants, a french 
translation of the oath required to be taken was read unto them. 

" Upon which, some of them desiring that a clause whereby they 
may not be obliged to carry arms might be inserted, 

14 1 told them that they had no reason to fear any such thing as 
that, it being contrary to the laics of Great Britain, that a Roman 
Catholic should serve in the army, His Majesty having so many 
faithful Protestant subjects first to provide for, that all His Maj- 
esty required of them was to be faithful subjects. 

11 But they, upon the motion made as aforesaid, still refusing and 
desiring the same clause to be inserted, the Governor, with the 
advice of the Council, granted the same to be written upon the mar- 
gin of the french translation, in order to get them over by degrees. 
Whereupon, they took and subscribed the same both in french oral 
english. . . And having drank His Majesty's, the royal family, and 
several other loyal healths, I bid them good night." 

Such is the report drawn up by Armstrong himself. 



HIGH COMEDY. 139 

When a man of his position has the effrontery thus to 
parade his knavery in a public document of this kind, 
we naturally infer that his honor is not worth much. 
This document is curious, it throws a strong light on 
the kind of diplomacy that was used toward the Aca- 
dians. Rameau, from whom I draw, has analyzed it 
with much skill. The dramatic get-up of the whole 
affair, says this historian, the feigned good-nature and 
honeyed speeches of the man, the " flowing bowl " that 
wins consent, and the cordial " good-night " that sends 
everybody to bed "mellow " : all this shows the consum- 
mate craft of an artful dodger. A master-stroke is that 
marginal note which he makes believe to accept in order 
" to get them over by degrees" and which he carelessly 
inserts in only one of the reports read by no one and 
never seen again. An admirable fabrication is that 
subterfuge about military service. 

What ! says Armstrong, you fear to be enrolled by 
force ? Know that, as you are Catholics, you would 
not even have the right to enlist of your own^free will. 
His Majesty reserves this honor for his Protestant sub- 
jects only. Assuredly this is one of the daintiest hoaxes 
ever invented in the realm of knavery. It belongs to 
high comedy, not to history. A pity it is that Moliere 
never heard of this adventure ! " What ! " would Scapin 
have exclaimed, u Are you afraid I will take your 
purse ? Why, my dear fellow, I wouldn't have it, even 
though you begged me to take it." 

Scarcely had he finished with the taking of the oath by 
the inhabitants of Port Royal, when he arrested Father 
Gaulin, their parish priest, " that old mischievous incen- 
diary Gaulin " as he calls him, on the plea that he had 
meddled with affairs that did not concern his ministry. 



140 ARBEST OF ABBE GATJLIN. 

The offence, if it should be really considered one, and if 
the accusation were well grounded, was certainly trivial: 
at any rate this arrest might be impolitic under the cir- 
cumstances. There still remained for him to cause the 
oath to be taken by the inhabitants of Grand Pre, 
Pigiguit, Cobequid, Beaubassin, etc., that is by more 
than three-fourths of the entire population ; but such was 
the irrepressible violence of his character that he could 
not control himself. His efforts to induce the people of 
these places to take the oath were ineffectual. Capt. 
Bennett and Ensign Philipps, whom he had sent for this 
purpose, returned without having accomplished any- 
thing. However, he does not attribute the cause of it 
to the arrest of Father Gaulin, if we judge by his letter 
of April 30, 1727, to the Secretary of State. 

The public will be surprised to learn that he imputes 
his defeat to the instigations of some merchants of 
Boston and to Major Cosby, afterward lieutenant-gover- 
nor of Annapolis : 

11 Since my last I have the mortification to tell Your Grace that 
there arrived here from Boston one M. Gambell, a lieutenant in the 
army, who, I am told, came from England with Major Cosby to Boston, 
where the Major still continues, tho' I have ordered him to his post, 
at Canso, and in defiance and disobedience to my orders, stays in 
New England to know the result of the said Gambell's false com- 
plaints against me. After his arrival here from England, he associated 
himself with some Boston ant [monarchical traders, who, together 
with some evil intended french inhabitants, . . . incited them to 
sign such complaints as he had formed against me, telling them, that 
I had no power nor authority to administer them such oaths, and also 
that Major Cosby would be with them this spring with full power to 

govern the Province And all this occasioned by the incitements 

and ill conduct of the aforesaid Gambell, and three or four New Eng- 
land traders." 

Mr. Parkman, it seems to me, ought not to have 



BOSTON AGAINST ARMSTRONG. 141 

deprived his readers of this document and of the other 
still more important one that precedes it. They would 
be interested to know the true inwardness of the wrangle 
to which Armstrong alludes. He must have had a 
special gift for making enemies, since we have here 
leagued against him a major of his own regiment, a 
lieutenant from some other regiment, and three or four 
merchants who had come from Boston to dissuade the 
Acadians from taking the oath that he proposed to them. 
We can understand his having enemies in Acadia, but 
his having enemies as far as Boston is beyond us. That 
there should be Frenchmen or priests to dissuade the 
Acadians from taking the oath is only natural ; but that 
English officers and English merchants should do so is 
most astounding. And if his yoke was hateful even as 
far as Boston, what must it have been at Annapolis and 
in Acadia ? 

Undejected by the failure of Bennett and Philipps, 
Armstrong despatched to the Acadians of the district of 
Mines and Beaubassin a young officer of the garrison 
named Robert Wroth. He gave him some very detailed 
instructions on the way he was to proceed. First, he 
was to proclaim the accession to the throne of His 
Majesty George II, and to celebrate the event by pub- 
lic festivities, after which he would make them sign the 
proclamation of this event, and then, in the nick of time, 
he was dexterously to slip in the oath of allegiance : 

" You are to behave seemingly with an air of indifference, and you 
are to represent to them how Divine Providence by icays unforeseen 
You are not to depart from my instructions unless where circum- 
stances and place may so require.'''' 

Iii reality Wroth had great latitude as to the oath 



142 ROBERT WROTH. 

he was to accept. The instructions of Armstrong to 
Wroth, the report of the latter, the text of the oath and 
of the conventions concluded between him and the 
Acadians are found in the Colonial Records. When 
one reads these documents, it is easy to understand why 
they were suppressed at Halifax, and still easier to 
realize the fraud and duplicity with which Armstrong 
presided at the taking of the oath. 

" Copy of the oath of fealty which I left to the inhabitants of 
Beaubassin and its dependencies : 

"I do sincerely Promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear 
True Allegiance to His Majesty King George the Second, so help me 
God. 

" Original of the articles that I granted to the inhabitants of Beau- 
bassin : 

" I, Robert Wroth, etc., etc., promise and grant in the name of the 
king etc., etc. . . to the inhabitants of Beaubassin, etc., etc. . . the 
articles here below that they have requested of me, namely: 

"1, That they shall be exempt from taking up arms against any- 
one, so long as they shall be under the rule of the king of England. 

"2. That they shall be free to withdraw whithersoever they will 
think fit, and that they shall be discharged from this signed agree- 
ment, as soon as they shall be outside the domination of the King of 
England. 

" 3. That they shall have full and entire liberty to practise their re- 
ligion and to have Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Priests. 

11 Robert Wroth." 

This oath did not differ perceptibly from that accepted 
by Armstrong from the inhabitants of Annapolis, since 
he himself had agreed to their exemption from military 
service and the other articles had been provided for by 
the treaty of Utrecht. 

The report of Wroth to the governor is very long 
and detailed. It is very interesting reading : step by 
step, says Rameau, we can trace his method, which does 



AN AMIABLE BLACKGUARD. 143 

not differ from Armstrong's as far as fraud goes ; but, 
while the latter is imperious and passionate, the former 
is an amiable blackguard who attends to his affairs 
while enjoying himself and who enjoys himself so as to 
attend to them better. Wherever he shows himself, he 
opens proceedings by banquets : a banquet the first day, 
a banquet the second; there is eating and drinking. 
The first day no special topic is introduced ; next day, 
the king's death is announced and the accession of his 
successor, who is greatly interested in the welfare of the 
Acadians. They drink in memory of the death of the 
former and for the health of the latter ; they drink in 
honor of His Gracious Majesty, they drink the health 
of the Queen regnant, of the other Queen ; they drink 
to all the other royal and loyal toasts ; then this amiable 
blackguard winds up by drinking with feelings of com- 
punction to Divine Providence which by ways unfore- 
seen. . . . 

" After which," resumes Wroth, "I judged the moment favorable 
to introduce my little discourse as follows : 

" I doubt not, my friends, you know what brings me here, how that 
by the death of the King, my master, of glorious memory, Divine 
Providence has miraculously afforded you the occasion." .... 

Here, he extols the king and his bounty, but makes 
no mention yet of the oath, which was the object of his 
mission ; only, he convokes them to another banquet, 
during which they were to proceed to the proclaiming 
of the king, and Wroth improves the occasion by ex- 
horting them to bring as many friends as possible, for 
that they were to acclaim and sign the Proclamation of 
the king. 

The way was thus skilfully prepared ; but in spite of 
orchestral symphonies, bonfires, discharges of musketry, 



144 DOUBLE-DEALING. 

hurrahs, enthusiastic toasts, yea even the fumes oi 
liquor, these Acadians had not quite lost their wits, 
and, when he finally presented the written oath to have 
it signed, they respectfully reminded him that he had 
forgotten to complete it, and requested him to insert the 
restrictions they had always demanded in such an emer- 
gency. He flew into a rage, cooled down, returned to 
the attack on the morrow ; but, with their simple good- 
nature, he found them still inexorable. 

" They still insisted upon the same demands, and after having seri- 
ously weighed them, and not judging them repugnant to Treaties, 
Acts of Parliament and Trade, I granted them as an indulgence, and 
by reason of their diffidence of my authority, I was obliged to certify 
the same in the body of the oath." 

It was the same at Mines : the same manoeuvres, the 
same results. There, objections were made with refer- 
ence to the word " obe*irai," 

11 . . . which gave me no concern^the english being what I had to govern 
myself by ; and finding by advice, the same might be translated in a 
manner more agreable to them, and, at the same time, as conformable 
to the english and as binding ; I thought proper to alter the same r 
as appears by the oath they took." 

So, here we have, says Rameau, a man who does not 
scruple, in a treaty of which two copies were extant, to 
alter one of them so as to render the agreement more 
acceptable, and who is, meanwhile, fully aware that the 
French will understand the text in one way, while he, 
the Englishman, will understand it in quite a different 
way. After all, says he, I will sign whatever they 
wish ; for me, only the English text will count. 

Wroth was very badly received by Armstrong, and 
yet he had not swerved from his instructions ; he had r 



DOUBLE-DEALING. 145 

substantially, followed the same line of conduct as 
Armstrong himself. By a decision of the council the 
oath obtained by Wroth was declared null and void ; 
but, most strange to relate — for these negotiations are a 
series of surprises — it was declared in the same resolu- 
tion that, since the inhabitants had signed these acts and 
proclaimed His Majesty, they had become his subjects 
and would enjoy all the privileges attached to that 
quality, which no doubt also implies all the obligations 
resulting therefrom. 
10 



146 PHILIPPS REDUX. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Return of Philipps— All the Acadians of the peninsula take the 
oath— Nature of this oath— It was entitled "Oath of fealty," 
(" Serment de Fidelite"), and the Acadians were called 
' ' French Neutrals " — What the Compiler thinks of this — Park- 



Whoever confronts Armstrong's reports on the ques- 
tion of the oath with his letters to the Lords of Trade 
after his operations at Annapolis, the other letter that 
followed the failure of Captain Bennett, his instructions 
to Wroth and the latter's report, can easily account for 
the indignation the Lords of Trade must have felt in 
presence of this series of administrative tomfooleries 
and tricks, worthy, at best, of a horse-jockey or a street 
mountebank. The exploits of Wroth had filled up the 
measure ; all this nonsense must now be stopped ; the 
Government's dignity gravely compromised by Arm- 
strong must be restored ; a final and fairly reasonable 
settlement must be made of this eternal Acadian 
question. 

The Lords of Trade had recourse to Philipps, who 
always retained the title of Governor of Nova Scotia. It 
was not without regret that he quitted London where 
he led so pleasant a life of leisure on his large salary. 
He himself, in his first attempt, it is true, had not been 
more fortunate than Armstrong ; but he was able at least 
to command attention by his high position, his courtly 
manners, his urbanity ; and, at all events, the dignity of 



HE ADMINISTERS THE OATH. 147 

the crown would be safe in his hands. Moreover, 
knowing by his own experience the inflexible determina- 
tion of the Acadians with regard to military exemption, 
he brought with him or was expected to have brought 
a solution to the difficulty, a middle term, which, he 
trusted, would give them satisfaction. We know not 
the tenor of his instructions, but his subsequent acts 
permit us to form a very correct estimate thereof. 

Hardly had Philipps landed at Annapolis when he 
set to work, and three weeks later, he wrote to the 
Lords of Trade that he had administered the oath to all 
the inhabitants of Annapolis, and that at the opening of 
navigation he would do the same for the inhabitants of 
Mines, Cobequid and Beaubassin, who, it was said, were 
all disposed to take it resolutely, " as they are pleased to 
express that the good likeing they have to my Govern- 
ment, in comparison of what they experienced afterwards, 
did not a little contribute, and therefore, reserved this 
honor for me ; indeed, 1 have had no occasion to make 
use of threats and compidsion" 

Philipps had arrived in December, 1729. On Sep- 
tember 2nd following, he informed the Lords of Trade 
that he had completed the tendering of the oath to all the 
Acadians of the province. " A work," says he, " which 
became daily more necessary in regard to the great in- 
crease of those people, who are this day a formidable 
body and, like Noah's progeny, spreading themselves 
over the face of the Province. You are not unacquainted 
that for twenty years past they have continued stubborn 
and refractory upon all summons of this kind, but 
having essayed the difference of G-overnment in my 
absence, they signified their readiness to comply .... 
Thus far the peace of the country is settled." 



148 ORAL PROMISE. 

How had Philipps been able to obtain, and apparently 
with so much case, what he himself and others had 
hitherto failed to obtain ? Was this, as he boasted, due 
to the superiority of his methods, to the mildness of his 
government ? What had really happened ? What was 
the nature of the oath obtained ? Was there a clause 
exempting the Acadians from bearing arms against the 
French and their allies ? And if so, was it written or 
verbal ? 

The answer is easy. Philipps, it is true, did not ex- 
plain that to the Lords of Trade, he merely says that he 
took care not to imitate Wroth's shameful surrender. 
Any further statement was unnecessary, since he had 
but just come from England, his instructions were quite 
fresh, and the question must have been discussed in all 
its different aspects before his departure. Philipps well 
knew by his own sad experience that he could not hope 
for an unrestricted oath ; he must therefore have come 
with a solution all prepared, and this solution was — to 
agree by ivord of mouth with the Acadians that they should 
be exempt from bearing arms. A written promise an- 
nexed to the oath was the difficulty that the authorities 
could not surmount ; it was, thought they, a shameful 
capitulation, a derogation from the dignity of the crown. 
It was not so for an oral promise, and that was, I have no 
doubt, the concession which Philipps was instructed to 
grant ; for, in England at least, it was very well under- 
stood that the Acadians could not be obliged to take up 
arms against their fellow-countrymen. For the Acadians, 
the objection to an oral promise was the lack of security ; 
but this obstacle was not insurmountable. With a 
man of Philipps's high position, newly arrived from Eng- 
land, who vouched for the word of his sovereign, the 



view. 149 

guarantee seemed sufficient, and diffidence ceased. Such 
was, I firmly believe, the compromise proposed, discussed 
and accepted ; it readily explains the prompt success of 
the negotiations. 

When Haliburton wrote his history of Nova Scotia, 
he had not access to the documents we now possess. He 
does not even seem to have seriously tried to penetrate 
the problem ; but, with his knowledge of this people, his 
great talent of observation, developed by his experience 
as a lawyer and a judge, he immediately perceived that 
the Acadians could not have accepted an unrestricted 
oath ; but he supposes treachery ; he recalls Armstrong's 
impostures, and supposes that some artifice of the kind 
had been practised. He cannot have convinced these 
men, he must have deceived them, says he. He was 
right in the sense that the Acadians did not indeed take 
an unrestricted oath. But I do not think they were 
deceived. The promise was only verbal, but was ac- 
cepted as a solemn promise. Haliburton, judging accord- 
ing to previous events, cannot believe the Acadians 
accepted simple oral promises. His mistake arises from 
his not adverting to the wide distinction they drew be- 
tween a man of Armstrong's character, so violent, so 
crafty, so fickle, so little respected by the people about 
him, a man whose position was after all only secondary, 
and Philipps with his imposing dignity, his high position 
and the authorization which he had brought with him 
from England. 

Contrary, then, to several historians, who have sup- 
posed a written restrictive clause annexed to the body 
of the oath and afterwards suppressed as was the oath 
itself, which is not in the archives of Halifax, I assert 
that, in all likelihood, the Acadians were not deceived by 



150 

Philipps, that the restrictive clause about not bearing 
arms was only verbal, and was accepted as such. 

I would not undertake to establish the proof of this 
restriction, had not the Compiler objected to it, and 
Parkman accepted his objection. According to them 
the oath of fidelity was taken by all the Acadians vol- 
untarily and without any written or verbal condition. 

In support of my contention, I shall first cite Gov- 
ernor Lawrence, the very man who deported the 
Acadians. In his circular to the governors of New 
England, which accompanied the transports laden with 
exiled Acadians, I find the following : " The Acadians 
ever refused to take the oath of Allegiance, without hav- 
ing at the same time from the Governor an assurance in 
writing that they should not be called upon to bear arms 
in the defence of the Province, and with this General 
Philipps did comply, of which His Majesty disap- 
proved." 

This would seem to prove clearly that there was a 
written promise ; but Lawrence, I have every reason to 
believe, was mistaken in that detail. The point on which 
he wished to throw light was the restriction in the oath, 
and that alone is well founded ; the details, which were 
only incidental to the principal fact, are false ; and it 
is equally false that His Majesty disapproved this re- 
striction, for not the slightest trace of such disapproba- 
tion appears in the public documents. All we see there 
is a small discussion between the Lords of Trade and 
Philipps on the construction of a sentence in the oath, a 
mere matter of grammar. Lawrence, who was not very 
particular, has construed this simple question of syn- 
tax into a formal disapprobation of the oath. 

In another letter of Lawrence to Sir Thomas Robin- 



A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 151 

son, of November 30, 1755, we find the following, 
relative to the Acadians of Beaubassin : 

"They were the descendants of those French who had taken the 
oath of allegiance to His Majesty in the time of General Philipps' s 
Government, with the reserve of not taking arms." 

Another letter from Lawrence, in the Archives of 
Nova Scotia, page 259, contains this passage : 

*' As the Acadians of this Province have never yet at any time taken 
the oath of allegiance unqualified." 

Governor Cornwallis, in his letter, dated September 
11, 1749, to the duke of Bedford, writes : 

"I cannot help saying that General Philipps deserved the highest 
punishment for what he did here, fiis allowing a reserve to the oath 
of allegiance." 

The same Governor, addressing the Acadian deputies, 
said: 

" You have always refused to take this oath without an expressed 
reservation." * 

Governor Hopson, writing to the Lords of Trade, 
December 10, 1752, said : 

" Lord Cornwallis can likewise acquaint you that the inhabitants of 
Beaubassin who had taken the oath with General Philipps's condi- 
tion. ..." 

Governor Mascarene, in a letter to Shirley in April 
1748, said with reference to the oath obtained by 
Philipps : 

" The Acadians intending to have a clause not to be obliged to take 
up arms against the French, though not inserted, they have always 

*N. S. Archives, p. 174. 



152 ACADIAN CERTIFICATE. 

stood was promised to them ; and I have heard it owned by those who 
were at Mines when the oath was administered at that place, that 
such a promise was given. Their plea with the French, who pressed 
them to take up arms, was their oath.'' 1 

In 1744, when war was raging between France and 
England, an attempt was made to oblige the Acadians 
to serve as pilots and guides ; but the Acadians, believ- 
ing that their oath exempted them from a service that 
appeared contrary to their neutrality, addressed a petition 
to the governor to ask him his opinion on this point. 
Governor Mascarene replied : 

"If in taking this oath of allegiance, the Government was kind 
enough to say to you, that it would not compel you to take up arms, it 
was out of pure deference. That they were not thereby exempted from 
serving as pilots and guides. . . . Whereupon, they withdrew their 
petition. 

There are other proofs of the same kind in twenty 
different places in the volume of the Archives, and 
particularly on pages 204, 233, 234. 

It was not without some apprehension that the Aca- 
dians consented to waive their claim to a written proof ; 
so, in order to provide for emergencies, they, immediately 
after the taking of the oath, drew up a certificate, which 
was signed and attested, and addressed to the minister 
of foreign affairs in Paris, to be, in case of necessity, 
appealed to by the French Government. 

" We, Charles de la Goudalie, priest, missionary of the parish of 
Mines, (Grand Pre and River aux Canards) and Noel Alexandre Noir- 
ville, priest bachelor of the faculty of theologians of la Sarbonne, mis- 
sionary and parish priest of the Assumption and of the Holy Family 
of Pigiguit, certify to whom this may concern, that His Excellency 
Richard Philipps, etc., etc., has promised to the inhabitants of Mines 
and other rivers dependent thereon, that he exempts them from bear- 
ing arms and fighting in war against the French and the Indians, and 



"FRENCH NEUTRALS." 153 

that the said inhabitants have only accepted allegiance and promised 
never to take up arms in the event of a war against the Kingdom of 
England and its government. 

" The present certificate made, given and signed by us here named, 
this April 25, 1730, to be put into the hands of the inhabitants, to be 
available and useful to them wherever there shall be need or reason 
for it. 

*' Signed : de la Goudalie, parish priest; Noel Noirville, priest and 
missionary. 

"Collated by Alexander Bourg Belle-Humeur, this 25th April, 
1730." 

It would be difficult not to admit the force of the 
proof I have just given. I might add the very signifi- 
cant fact that, since 1730, the Acadians were universally 
known by the name of " French Neutrals" Thus are 
they very often designated by the official documents 
emanating from the governors of the province and from 
the Lords of Trade. To pretend, as the Compiler does, 
that their oath contained no restriction, would be to de- 
stroy all the significance of this appellation, and to sup- 
pose an absurdity. 

In spite of all this evidence the Compiler says : 
" Governor Philipps, on his return to Annapolis in 1730, 
brought the people, at last, to take an unconditional oath 
willingly.'''' The reader will be curious to know what 
grounds the Compiler had to establish a pretension that 
was never alleged at this epoch, and which is expressly 
and repeatedly contradicted by all the governors of 
the Province, who succeeded Philipps, namely : by Mas- 
carene, Cornwallis, Hopson, and Lawrence. The reply is 
very simple : his pretension is utterly groundless. In the 
entire volume, which he himself compiled, there is not 
one sentence, not one word that supports his pretension 
or implies it, whether directly or indirectly. This may 
appear strange, but it is not so for me who am accus- 



154 THE COMPILER INVENTS. 

tomed to the artifices of the Compiler. It would be 
difficult to express in fit language the conduct of a man 
who dares to uphold such views not only without any- 
proof, but against a mass of documents that destroy 
them. 

" In April, 1730," says the Compiler, " Governor Phil- 
ipps announced to the council the unqualified sub- 
mission of the inhabitants." No such thing occurred. 
Neither to his council, nor to the Lords of Trade did Phil- 
ipps ever use the expression " unqualified" nor any other 
equivalent one ; at least there is not a trace thereof in 
the Compiler's volume, and there can be no doubt that 
any document that contained such an expression would 
not have been omitted, as he omits such documents only 
as are unsuited to his purpose. 

Until now I have had to attack only his bad faith, 
and that was bad enough ; but it is, if such a thing be 
possible, outdone by his presumption. Listen to him : 

11 The term " Neutral French " having heen so frequently applied 
to the Acadians in public documents, their constant denial of an un- 
qualified oath ever having been taken by them, the reiterated asser- 
tions of their priests. . . led the governors at Halifax, in 1749, and at 
subsequent periods, erroneously to suppose that no unconditional 
oath of allegiance had ever been taken by the people of Acadia to 
the British Crown." 

This is really ridiculous. A man must fancy himself 
endowed with intuitive cognition and born with infused 
science, before he thus ventures to substitute his own 
groundless view for the wisely formed opinions of all his 
predecessors, and to set himself against them all. He 
is ludicrously in earnest when he proclaims to the world 
that the term " French Neutral" never had any foun- 
dation in fact. The contemporaries of these events, the 



THE COMPILER INVENTS. 155 

governors and Lords of Trade, when they made use 
of it in public documents, knew not what they were 
saying. Mascarene, who had been present at the taking 
of Port Royal in 1710, who in 1730 was counsellor to 
Philipps, and in 1740 governor himself, knew nothing. 
The officers of the garrison who had been, some of them, 
witnesses of this tendering of the oath, and who had 
reported it to Mascarene, Cornwallis, Hopson and Law- 
rence, knew nothing. All these governors had a thou- 
sand ways of ascertaining the true state of the case ; 
yet, they knew nothing. The facts that they so posi- 
tively affirm were contrary to their interests and desires, 
and, nevertheless, they let themselves be imposed upon 
by the affirmations of the Acadians. What a fraud 
history is, if this be the case ! But, considering that 
this attempt to overthrow one of the best established 
historical facts is supported only by the ipse dixit of a 
man living in a different century, even though he be a 
compiler of archives, I prefer to say : What monumen- 
tal audacity ! 

" Their constant denial led the governors to be- 
lieve " , as if there had then been a great contro- 
versy on this subject between the Acadians and the 
governors ; whereas, I repeat, there is not one sentence, 
not one word in the whole volume of the archives, com- 
piled by himself, that shows it was so. It is a pure 
fabrication. And, if in reality this question had been 
the object of a controversy, it would be necessary to 
believe that the Acadians were able to satisfy these 
governors that their pretensions were well founded, and 
then it would be rash for a fin-de-siecle compiler of the 
nineteenth century to dispute the validity of facts a 
century and a half old, already pondered, matured and 



156 PARKMAN RECTIFIES. 

accepted by contemporaries whose interest it was not to 
admit them. " Their constant denial of an unqualified 
oath, and the reiterated assertions of their priests . . . led 

the governors erroneously to believe " According 

to this ineffable compiler, the testimony, the constant 
affirmations of the Acadians and their priests, all count 
for nothing, are not worth the least verbal report of the 
vilest soldier of the garrison ; that is no doubt the 
reason why he has systematical^ omitted the few 
documents coming from the Acadians. In this spirit 
has all this volume been compiled. 

Haliburton, it is easy to see, cannot have known the 
opinion on this subject of the four governors I have 
just named ; however, his powers of observation and his 
legal instinct, aided by his impartiality, had guided him 
securely in this search for truth. He had not been able 
to believe in an oath without restriction ; the subse- 
quent discoveries showed he was right. Thus is true 
history written; one must possess these qualities to 
write it ; otherwise it is only a lie. 

Parkman, on this point, as on many others, has 
endorsed the opinion of the Compiler. It is so conven- 
ient to find opinions ready-made. But, there is this 
difference between them : while the Compiler had abso- 
lutely no ground for his opinion, Parkman had at least 
the excuse of resting on the Compiler's authority. 
Slender as this is, let him have the benefit of it.* 

* Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Parkman in his new work, "A 
Half Century of Conflict " has rectified in these terms what he had for- 
merly said : 

" Recently,however, evidence has appeared that, so far at least as regards 
the Acadians on and near the Mines Basin, the effect of the oath was quali- 
fied by a promise on the part of Philipps that they should not be required 
to take up arms either against French or Indians." 

Mr. Parkman had accepted the opinion of the Compiler without verify- 
ing it. I must do him the justice of admitting that he likes to found his 



PAEKMAN RECTIFIES. 157 

statements on something ; but he is wrong in saying : " recently evidence 
has appeared," for with the exception of the affidavit of Messrs. de la 
Goudalie, Noirville and Bourg, the entire proof I have produced is drawn 
from the volume of the Archives itself, which he quotes frequently in his 
former work, " Wolfe and Montcalm ; " however, some labor is needed to 
combine the factors of this proof. Besides,his correction is incomplete, as 
he applies to the Acadians of Mines what should apply to all. 



158 QUESTION APPARENTLY SETTLED. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Philipps returns to England 1731 — Armstrong resumes the admin- 
istration of the province — His character, his difficulties with 
Major Cosby, Blinn, Winniett, etc. — His relations with Mau- 
geant — The Compiler, his omissions, his artifices — Suicide of 
Armstrong, Dec. 6th, 1739. 

At last, this question of the oath, so long an occasion 
of strife, vexation and uncertainty, was, apparently at 
least, settled for good. There was no more question of 
it for twenty years till the foundation of Halifax in 1749. 
Until then, the Acadians had been held captive in the 
country by the orders and hindrances of the governors, 
who had refused to accept in good faith the treaty and 
conventions of Queen Anne. 

Wearied of a bootless struggle, the Acadians had 
accepted the oath of fealty which granted them the 
exemption which they clung to so earnestly. They were 
becoming English subjects, and were finally giving up the 
ever-entertained idea of a departure. Their agricultural 
holdings, which had suffered from this uncertainty, were 
about to make rapid progress. Peace and contentment 
were about to take the place of distrust, and prosperity 
was going to spring up anew. 

This period of twenty years was the most tranquil, 
the happiest and most prosperous in the history of 
Acadia. The Acadians had still to suffer from Arm- 
strong, who, for nine years after the departure of 



"PKOCUL A JOVE." 159 

Philipps, once more filled the office of lieutenant- 
governor; but as much might be said of the garrison, 
the officers and the council, all of whom suffered perhaps 
even more than the Acadians, because the daily contact 
they had with him exposed them still more to his whims 
and bursts of anger. On the whole the Acadians did 
not feel the yoke too severely ; in fact, those of Mines 
and Beaubassin were almost left to themselves. For a 
long time there was almost no other garrison in the 
Province than that of Annapolis. Outside this place the 
authority of the government was in no way represented, 
except perhaps by the notary, who was at the same time 
receiver of the rents and revenues of the Crown, which 
were very little. These notaries, moreover, were them- 
selves Acadians,* and, during six months of the year, all 
communications between these places and Annapolis were 
interrupted. Disagreements between Acadians were 
rare, and were usually settled by arbiters, except those 
arising from the limits of their lands, which were re- 
ferred to the Council of Annapolis. These latter seem 
to have been frequent after 1730. These properties 
had never been regularly surveyed, and, as the popula- 
tion rapidly increased and the government refused or 
delayed to make new concessions, the result was re- 
peated subdivisions of the land and frequent conflicts, 
which were submitted to the decision of the council. I 
shall return to this subject. 

I would like to speak as seldom as possible of the 
Compiler, but, in spite of myself, I am forced to return 
to him, because he puts me in the impossibility of passing 



* Jean Duon was notary at Annapolis, Pierre Bergeron at Beaubassin, 
Alexandre Bourg at Mines. Saint Cenne was physician at Annapolis, 
Bugeaud and Mouton at Mines. 



160 GRAVE LACUNAE. 

an enlightened judgment on many a phase of this 
history. His volume, which, in the intention of the 
Legislature, was to serve for the general history of the 
province, is, as I have already said, only a compilation 
of complaints against the Acadians and the clergy. 
Insignificant as they sometimes are, they take up the 
whole of his space during Armstrong's administration, 
from 1725 to 1740. There is not in the volume of the 
Archives a single document emanating from the Acadians 
or their priests during these fifteen years ; it was not, 
however, because they were completely wanting, since 
in several of Armstrong's letters to the Lords of Trade 
he makes mention of copies of such documents which he 
communicates to them. 

Not only does the volume of the Archives contain 
nothing but letters setting forth complaints against the 
Acadians and the clergy, but these letters are mutilated 
in such a way as to exclude all that does not relate 
thereto. It is easy to understand that Armstrong in his 
letters to the Lords of Trade must have most carefully 
avoided whatever might damage him ; but his other let- 
ters, treating of his endless difficulties with his officers, 
his council and all his attendants, are quite sufficient to 
give us a clear insight into his character, and these 
were omitted by the Compiler, who, I have no hesitation 
in saying it, has carefully eliminated all that might 
direct suspicion to Armstrong. And, if Armstrong's 
own letters are a sufficient portrait of himself, how much 
more life-like that portrait would be, if in each case the 
letters of others about him were also shown ? Did the 
Compiler imagine that writers who like to get to the 
bottom of a question were going to accept as proved 
and indisputable every accusation brought by Arm- 



161 

strong, even were this man what the Compiler has en- 
deavored to make him ? With some people, doubtless, 
he has succeeded ; but all this deception will come to an 
end : for, not to speak of the researches of painstaking 
writers on this subject, the Government of Nova Scotia 
will, I trust, understand how it is its bounden duty to 
have the Archives overhauled and that compilation 
completed and corrected, which has issued so incomplete 
and so one-sided from the hands of Thomas B. Akins. 

Through the fault of this Compiler, I am unable to 
satisfy myself and the public fully as to Armstrong's 
administration, which occupies, in the period of history 
I am engaged on, fifteen years, that is, nearly one-third 
of the whole. Though the Compiler's handling of the 
other two-thirds is not much better, I have at least had, 
in certain parts, the advantage of receiving more com- 
plete information from documents outside the volume 
of the Archives. 

I will, however, try to make up, as best I can, for the 
Compiler's omissions, and to show, what he hides, the 
character of Armstrong ; for that purpose I shall in cer- 
tain cases receive help from the curtailed portion of the 
documents that he delivers to us, in others, from new 
documents coming mostly from Armstrong himself. 
Thus, to a great extent, which is certainly a rare priv- 
ilege, Armstrong shall be judged by himself. 

We have already seen what Lieutenant-Governor 
Caulfield said of him to the Lords of Trade, when Arm- 
strong was as yet only captain in the regiment gar- 
risoned at Annapolis in 1715. We have seen how he 
had made himself enemies at Boston among the mer- 
chants of the place. We have seen, besides, by another 
letter dated October 24, 1735, not cited in the volume of 
11 



162 aemsteong's misdeeds. 

the Archives, that, as soon as he arrived at Canso from 
London with his commission as lieutenant-governor, he 
wrote to the Lords of Trade, that he had asked to have 
from Boston sixty Indians and twelve whalers, that he 
had from Commodore St. Lo the promise of sixtv 
marines, that, with all of these joined to the soldiers of 
his garrison, he intended to traverse the province for 
the purpose of forcing the Acadians to take the oath. 
He ended his letter thus : " I hope we shall do our 
duty, and give a good account of ourselves." True, he 
did nothing of the kind ; but perhaps he could not help 
himself. At all events this letter speaks volumes for 
his character. 

At the same time he complained of Captain John 
Eliot, Captain Franklin, Captain Kenwood and several 
others. On September 23, 1726, he accused his servant, 
John Nichols, of an assault on his person. In the month 
of July following, Mr. Shirreff, secretary of the council, 
resigned his position after some difficulties he had with 
Armstrong. A month later, as Murdoch writes : " A 
discord arose between Armstrong and M. M. Winniett, 
James Blinn and Bissell, merchants, connected with the 
supplies for the garrison." August 23d, Armstrong in- 
formed the council: "of M. Blinn's insolent behaviour 
to him on Monday last, upon the public parade, before 
most of the officers and soldiers of the garrison, where, 
after a great deal of disrespectful language and unman- 
nerly gestures, he, at length, told him that he would 
not give him two pence for his commission." 

In September of the same year he notified the inhabi- 
tants of Annapolis to take the oath. They refused un- 
less he would insert the restriction. He imprisoned the 
three delegates they sent him, Landry, Bourgeois and 



WINNIETT. 163 

Richard : " It was ordered that they should be sent to 
prison and laid in irons." Landry's wife applied to 
Armstrong, in consequence of her husband being 
dangerously ill, to grant his liberty on surety for his re- 
turn when recovered. Her prayer was rejected. 

July 12, 1728, Armstrong wrote to Mr. Stanion, of 
the office of the Secretary of State : " Several complaints 
being sent against me by two or three malicious leaders 
in this Province, although not exhibited, but lodged in 
the hands of Governor Philipps, who, I am sure, only 
wants a proper opportunity of making his own use of 
them to my prejudice." Murdoch, the estimable author 
of a history of Nova Scotia, to whom I owe some of my 
quotations, says, that Armstrong had, in 1711 and after- 
wards, undergone some losses, and that in consequence 
he became "unhappy, irritable, and jealous. He sus- 
pected Philipps and Cosby of being his enemies," the 
last named gentleman because he had married the 
daughter of Winniett, with whom Armstrong had had 
some difficulties. " Mr. Winniett," continues Murdoch, 
" seems to have been married to an Acadian lady and 
to have had great personal influence among the Aca- 
dians, but I believe it was never used for any improper 
purpose, and that he was upright, loyal and kindly dis- 
posed." l 

June 23, 1729, Armstrong wrote again to the Lords 

i Winniett, who was a merchant at Annapolis and counsellor of the gov- 
ernor, had married in 1711 Marie Madeleine Maisonnat, second daughter 
of Pierre Maisonnat and Marguerite Bourgeois. This Pierre Maisonnat, 
in the wars that preceded the capture of Port Royal, was, together with 
Pierre Morpain and Francis Guy on, the terror of Boston commerce. He 
was known throughout all New England by the name of " Baptiste." 
Toward 1706 his vessel was taken and he himself brought prisoner to Bos- 
ton. In 1707 he was exchanged for Rev. John Williams, the unfortunate 
victim of the massacre of Deerfield. Major Cosby, lieutenant-governor of 
the garrison of Annapolis, married Anne, the eldest daughter of Winniett. 
Pierre Maisonnat settled about 1712 at Beaubassin with his wife's relatives. 



164 MAUGEANT. 

of Trade. In this letter, which is very long, he com- 
plains of everybody, of Major Cosby in particular, of 
Father Breslay, of the French papists, of the collector of 
customs, etc., etc. 

On the arrival of Philipps, in 1730, Armstrong went 
back to England, whence he returned the following 
year. Here is what Philipps wrote to the Secretary of 
State a few weeks after his arrival at Annapolis : " I 
found at my coming a general dissatisfaction in all 
parts, and disagreement between the two lieutenant-gov- 
ernors (Cosby and Armstrong) about the right of 
power and command, which drew the inferior officers 
into parties ; but I assure Your Grace it is now the reverse. 
Joy and satisfaction appear in every countenance among 
the people, and in the garrison tranquillity." 

This letter is in the volume of the archives, but the 
part I quote is omitted. Doubtless it is by mistake the 
Compiler dates this letter January 3, 1729, for in 
reality it should be January 3, 1730. 

The following fact is a revelation of Armstrong's 
character. In 1726, there arrived at Annapolis a 
Frenchman by the name of Maugeant, who, when ex- 
amined by the council, admitted that he was fleeing 
from French justice for a murder he had committed at 
Quebec. He pleaded as an excuse self-defence. Arm- 
strong made him his man of business, his instrument, 
and, as far as we can judge, his intimate counsellor. 
With Armstrong's confidence and protection, Maugeant 
incurred the detestation of everybody: officers, soldiers, 
and Acadians. His infatuation for Maugeant was so 
great that he took him with him to England, on the 
arrival of Philipps. Here is what Philipps wrote of 
him, September, 2, 1730 : 



PHILIPPS AND APvMSTRONG. 165 

" Lieut.-Col. Armstrong who is gone for England, carried with 
him one Maugeant, a french papist, who fled lately from Canada into 
this Province for a barbarous murder. The Lieut.-Governor took 
him into his protection and admitted him to take the oath, after 
which he rendered himself exceedingly odious to the inhabitants, 
both English and French, they, believing that the Lieut.-Governor 
acted toward them by his council and advice. At my arrival, he, 
finding many complaints were ready to be exhibited against him, 
petitioned for leave to»retire, which, being granted, with a defense 
never to return, gave a general satisfaction, and proved a great in- 
ducement towards their submission to the Crown of Great Britain. 
The fellow's character is very bad, but is allowed to have a genius, 
and would make an excellent minister to an arbitrary prince." 

This letter is also in the volume of the archives, 
except, however, this citation ; and nevertheless this 
short extract says more as to the character of Arm- 
strong and is more useful to the general history of the 
Province than many other documents found therein. 

Philipps sang his own praises rather loud when he 
attributed his prompt success to the good remembrance 
every one had preserved of him, and to the difference 
between his administration and Armstrong's. He can- 
not be judged exactly by his own valuation ; for, 
though he undoubtedly possessed great practical judg- 
ment, tact, and many of the qualities that go to make a 
good administrator, yet all this was favored and en- 
hanced by circumstances ; the contrast made him seem 
greater than he really was. 

Obliged to return to England for affairs of his regi- 
ment, he was again replaced by Armstrong. At the 
moment of his departure, Philipps wrote to the Duke of 
Newcastle : " It imports me much to be very careful of 
delivering up the Government to Lieutenant-Governor 
Armstrong with the greatest exactness, who is turning 
up every stone and raking into every kennel, to find 



166 PHILIPPS AND ARMSTRONG. 

some dirt to bespatter me with, in hopes that some 
may stick, etc., etc." He accuses him of ingratitude. 

Hardly had Philipps gone home, when Armstrong dif- 
ficulties commenced again worse than before with Cosby 
and Winniett. Cosby did not wish to sit with Arm- 
strong, and the council was reduced to four councillors. 
Twice in the course of the autumn of 1732 did Arm- 
strong complain of both these councillors to the Lords 
of Trade. At that time he wished to establish a fort at 
Mines, but was prevented by the Indians. Murdoch says 
in reference to this : " Armstrong accuses and suspects 
everybody in his disappointment." 

There is reason to believe that Armstrong's unpopu- 
larity and his ever-recurring difficulties embittered him 
more and more and drew upon him a severe reprimand 
from the Lords of Trade ; for he ended by committing 
suicide, December 6, 1739. He had made his will a 
month before, and a few weeks after his death all his goods 
were seized in the hands of his executors, to pay for 
rents and government fees which he had collected for 
several years without rendering any account of them ; 
in other words he was a peculator. 

I ask the reader : Is the writer that does not get firm 
hold of these facts a person capable of forming a sound 
estimate of events ? By silently ignoring them, does 
he fulfil his duty towards the public as an historian ? 
I think not ; on the contrary, I think that, when there 
is question of a government the power of which is 
centred in the hands of a single man, the first duty of 
the historian is to seek to penetrate the character of 
that man. This once found, he has the secret that will 
enable him to disentangle and elucidate many confused 
situations, to substitute light for darkness. 



SOME VIRTUES, MANY VICES. 



167 



I might perhaps express an opinion about some of 
Armstrong's difficulties ; I will not do so ; it is not 
necessary. It matters little, after all, whether in this or 
that particular case he may have been right or wrong. 
The fact that he was in a continual turmoil during his 
whole administration, with everybody and everywhere, 
is ample evidence that he himself was the author of his 
troubles through his cross-grained and hot-tempered 
nature. His was an ill-balanced mind. This makes it 
more difficult to understand and judge him than a man 
whose character is firm and steadfast, whether for good 
or evil ; however, enough is known of him to preclude 
all danger of a mistake. He was by turns kind and 
tyrannical. Amidst his fits of rage and his brutalities he 
sometimes gave proofs of humane feelings and of a sin- 
cere desire to promote the interests of his government. 
Though despotic at times, he was the first to suggest 
to the Lords of Trade the establishment of a representa- 
tive assembly, and, when he saw that his idea was for the 
moment impracticable, he nevertheless granted the Aca- 
dians, and that spontaneously, the privilege to name 
deputies. Their functions and powers were almost null ; 
yet this creation of his was wise and disinterested ; it 
produced excellent results under his successor. 

While passing judgment on his character and admin- 
istration, we cannot forget these facts ; however, they 
atone but very poorly for his long series of administra- 
tive buffooneries, his frauds, his unspeakable brutalities. 
He made enemies of all the people about him : of Major 
Crosby, of the secretary of the Council, of the mer- 
chants, the Acadians, the clergy, and even of Philipps, 
with whom it was so much his interest to be on good 
terms. His authority had so fallen into discredit that 



168 ACADIAN LETTERS MISSING. 

he was even publicly insulted by a merchant of the place 
and suffered a personal assault from his servant. It 
would indeed be something quite unprecedented if dif- 
ficulties so frequent and persistent crossed the path 
of one who knew how to use his authority with dignity 
and justice. The tree is judged by its fruits. 

Nothing gives us a better insight into Armstrong's 
character than his relations with Maugeant. Though 
the latter had been expelled by Philipps on account of his 
criminal record, and for having made himself odious to 
everybody, Armstrong took him with him to England 
as a chosen companion, brought him back again after 
eighteen months' absence, and, in direct opposition to 
the orders of his chief, retained him near his own person 
even till death, as his intimate counsellor and the instru- 
ment of his caprice. In view of these facts it is not 
surprising that Armstrong's authority had fallen so low. 

It will be readily understood that what I have alleged 
embraces only a very small part of Armstrong's deeds 
and feats, for, I have hardly touched on the last seven 
years of his administration, the years that immediately 
preceded his suicide. Very little is known of the 
events of that period ; presumably, this suicide was 
brought on by the aggravation of his faults and disap- 
pointments so keenly felt by his ill-balanced mind as to 
throw it completely out of gear ; but the Compiler cun- 
ningly saw that all this would throw too much light on 
Armstrong's administration and character, and defeat 
his purpose ; so he deemed it expedient to eliminate 
carefully whatever might reflect upon Armstrong, in 
order, thereby, to animadvert with cumulative force 
upon the Acadians and the clergy. When the docu- 
ments contain nothing against them, his occupation is 



ACADIAN LETTERS MISSING. 169 

gone ; he creates a vacuum. And, so far did he carry 
these tactics, that he even carefully omitted all docu- 
ments which would let the reader know of Armstrong's 
suicide. 

The better to exhibit his artifice, I here give the num- 
ber of the documents that the volume of the Archives 
contains for each year of Armstrong's administration : 
1T25, 3—1726, 4—1727, 11—1728, 1—1729, 1—1731, 5— 
1732, 9—1733, 0—1734, 0—1735, 1—1736, 2—1737, 0— 
1738, — 1739, 0. Except five or six documents of the 
Council, this collection is wholly made up of Arm- 
strong's own letters to the Lords of Trade. There is 
not a single letter from the Acadians or the priests, 
and yet there were such communications, since even 
Armstrong's letters mention several of them. Writing 
on June 10th, 1732, he says : " I transmit the enclosed 
letters ; Nos. 4, 5, 6, from priest de la Goudalie ; 7, 8, 
are mine ; No. 9 is from Rene* Le Blanc." In another 
letter of Nov. 22nd, 1736, he writes : " No. 1 is M. St. 
Ovide's first letter, No. 2 is my answer ; No. 3 are the 
minutes of the Council ; No. 4 is M. St. Poncy's decla- 
ration in Council ; No. 5 are the minutes of Council : 
No. 6 is the petition of the Acadians." 



170 STRONG LANGUAGE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Armstrong's difficulties with the clergy — The case of Abbe de 
Breslay, Abbe Isidore, and Messrs Chauvreulx and de St. Poncy — 
Painful situation of the clergy — Their attitude. 

In the preceding chapter I have, of Armstrong's diffi- 
culties, touched only on those which he had with his 
officers, his council, and the English merchants of Anna- 
polis. It may reasonably be supposed that he had some 
also with the priests and the Acadians. Strange to say, 
those he had with the Acadians are few in number and 
relate only to the question of the oath before it was 
settled by Philipps in 1730, and they are of so trivial a 
nature that the reader may well be spared the recital of 
them. All may be reduced to some complaints to the 
Lords of Trade concerning their refusal to take the oath 
in the form desired ; but, if the facts are in themselves 
insignificant or justifiable, the expressions Armstrong 
uses are not wanting in force. Their conduct, in so 
resisting his wishes, is repeatedly termed : undutiful, 
insolent, contemptuous, etc., etc. 

He had far more trouble with the clergy ; but, just as 
it would be impossible in most cases to judge between 
Armstrong and Philipps, Armstrong and Cosby, Arm- 
strong and Winniett, so it would be impossible for me 
to judge between Armstrong and the priests with whom 
he was at variance. After what is known of Armstrong, 
who would venture to accept as the exact truth all he 
has said of Philipps and Cosby, and to believe, upon his 



M. DE BRESLAY. 171 

simple affirmation, that he was right and they were 
wrong? No one, I presume, would be so rash. Simi- 
larly, I am utterly unable to decide between Armstrong 
and these priests. I regret it : for, I would act with 
the same freedom of mind as if there were question of 
anything else ; I regret it, because, far from discourag- 
ing me, problems of this sort have a particular attrac- 
tion. The reproach I should feel most would be that 
I let myself be influenced by prejudices, likes or dis- 
likes, all of which it is my most sincere desire to eschew. 
It were, I think, a legitimate inference, after what has 
been said of Armstrong, that, in his difficulties with 
Philipps, Cosby or others, the blame was generally on 
his side, and, when it was not wholly so, he was guilty 
of having drawn the quarrel upon himself. 

The first important difficulty of this kind was with 
M. de Breslay, parish-priest of Annapolis. All that we 
know of it is contained in a letter of Armstrong's to 
the Lords of Trade, dated June 23d, 1729. This letter, 
as a matter of course, is published by the Compiler, but, 
as he only gives the middle of it (the part indicated 
herein by italics), I transcribe it here almost in full, 
because the passages he has suppressed modify consid- 
erably the part he has given. Armstrong first speaks 
of a series of insults committed against him by divers 
persons of his garrison and others : 

" Through the malice of some people who are abetted and en- 
couraged by the favor and countenance of Major Cosby, the 
Lieut. -Governor of this garrison, who, forgetting his character and 
dignity, has condescended to become a party in the malicious con- 
trivances of my enemies, who, without any regard to truth or 
justice, or His Majesty's service, have obstructed, vilified and mis- 
represented all my actions. 

" Hie first person I shall take notice of for his notorious inso- 



172 M. DE BKESLAY. 

lence is M. de Breslay, the Popish priest of this river, who, having 
for some time past endeavoured to withdraw the people from their 
dependence on H. M"s Government, by assuming to himself the 
authority of a judge in civil affairs, and employing his spiritual 
censures to force them to a submission. His insolence and tyranny 
growing at last insupportable, I sent the adjudant to him to his 
house, to desire to speak with him, but his intelligence proved so 
good, though nobody was acquainted therewith but Major Cosby, 
that, before the adjudant could reach his house, he u-as gone off, and 
has ever since absconded in the woods, about tin's rifjer, among the 
Indians, pursuing his former practices of obstructing H. Ms 
service, and exciting the savages to mischief. To prevent which, 
I thought proper, by an order, published at the Mass house, to 
command him to be gone out of the Province in a month's time. 

" The Sieur Maugeant, whom I employed for to read the same 
to them in French, in the presence of the Fort Major, M. Wroth, 
and some other gentlemen, which, having done, as they were re- 
turning back to make me a report, amongst a crowd of people, 
they happened to meet Major Cosby, the Lieut. -Governor, on the 
highway, who, without any provocation, insulted and abused the 
said Maugeant. . . Major Cosby sent me immediately a complaint 
against the said Maugeant, alleging that he had affronted him, by 
grinning or laughing in his face. I found M. Cosby s allegations 
against Maugeant to be frivolous and groundless, and the true 
reason of the affront and insult to proceed from his resenting the 
services M. Maugeant had done His Majesty by reading and pub- 
lishing my orders to the people against their departing the Prov- 
ince without leave, and against M. de. Breslay, the Popish priest, 
whose cause he avowedly espouses merely in opposition to me." 

Such was the accusation. The obvious inference is 
that M. de Breslay had been chosen as arbiter ; that 
one of the parties refused to submit to his decision, and 
that he had made use of ecclesiastical censures to con- 
strain him thereto. But there was question here 
neither of conspiracy against the safety of the state nor 
of direct offence against authority. Arbitration has 
always been allowable in the settlement of differences, 
and it is devoutly to be wished that this practice were 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 173 

more general. The fact that nations are adopting it in 
our own time is one of the healthiest signs of social prog- 
ress in this nineteenth century. The censures may have 
been misused or inflicted for trivial motives ; but such 
abuse bore with it its own remedy, by averting suitors 
from an arbiter who had so high-handed a way of en- 
forcing his judgments. It was indeed very impolitic 
of the priest thus at once to ruin the popularity of his 
tribunal. However, Armstrong's brutality must as- 
suredly have been most terrifying to oblige him to flee 
into the woods for such a peccadillo ; and it is known 
from other sources that for more than a year he did not 
dare present himself at Annapolis. Very likely the 
case is not fully stated by Armstrong in his letter, for 
M. de Breslay, before returning, lodged his complaints 
in England and defended himself against the accusation 
of meddling with the affairs of the government, by pro- 
ducing certificates from Philipps and Cosby, attesting 
that on all occasions, as far as they knew, he had be- 
haved well.* That part of Armstrong's letter which is 
eliminated by the Compiler shows us that Cosby had 
espoused the cause of M. de Breslay. This was impor- 
tant. It was calculated to throw some doubt on the 
justice of Armstrong's proceedings, and the Compiler 
would have acted very kindly had he not deprived the 
public of this information. Very little is known of 
Cosby. He may have been no better than Armstrong ; 

* Armstrong insulted M. de Breslay even in the church while he was 
officiating, and had some of the people flogged in order to force them to 
bear witness against him. He broke open his doors, plundered his house 
and sold his cattle, keeping the proceeds for himself ; finally, he drove him 
by his violence to go and hide in the depths of the woods during more 
than fourteen months. M. de Breslay saw no other means to protect himself 
than to lodge his complaints in England, whither the governor had to go 
in person to defend himself (Casgrain, Voyage au pays d' Evangeline — 
Archives de la marine et des colonies). 



174 AN INTERDICTED PRIEST. 

but it must certainly have been very disagreeable to him, 
lieutenant-governor of the garrison, to see himself 
cast into the shade, supplanted in his authority by this 
Maugeant. With the above remarks, I leave the 
de Breslay incident to the reader's judgment. 

Another of Armstrong's difficulties was connected 
with Father Isidore, who was an interdicted priest. 
Armstrong wished to place him over the parish of Mines. 
He ought to have had sense enough to understand 
that a Catholic population would never consent to ac- 
cept an interdicted priest. By the fact of his interdic- 
tion he had no more right than Armstrong himself to say 
mass, hear confessions, or administer the sacraments: 
in diplomatic parlance, his usefulness was gone. In his 
anger Armstrong did not understand the obstacles he 
was running up against, he wished to impose Father 
Isidore anyhow ; but in this case lie was powerless to 
accomplish his will ; there ever remained to the in- 
habitants the privilege of not attending church, and 
against that Armstrong could effect nothing. That is 
precisely what they did, and, to use an altogether 
modern expression, Father Isidore was boycotted. Inde 
irae. Armstrong could punish the parish by refusing 
it another priest ; he did so as long as his rage lasted. 

The most serious difficulty, or at least that which is 
sometimes cited with accents of indignation against the 
insolence of the priests, particularly by Parkman, 
relates to Messrs. de Chauvreulx and de St Poncy. As 
there is here question of the actions of the Council, the 
case would seem to deserve special attention ; but, it must 
not be forgotten that Armstrong alone was not far from 
constituting the whole force of the Council. His brutal- 
ities had disgusted the most important members and 



IN HIGH DUDGEON. 175 

kept them from attending it ; those who still consented 
to attend (and the number was, at the arrival of 
Philipps in 1730, no longer sufficient for a quorum) 
had evidently to give up their independence. They had 
either to submit to him or to resign, or at least to absent 
themselves on critical occasions. 

After this necessary explanation I shall reproduce in 
their essential parts the minutes of the Council relating 
to the case of Messrs. de Chauvreulx and de St. Poncy ; 
it is the last document that the Compiler transmits to us 
concerning Armstrong's administration, the document 
nearest to the time of his suicide. 

" Whereupon, M M. de St. Poncy and de Chauvreulx, the two 
Romish priests, were called in and informed that it was judged 
necessary before M. de St. Poncy 's departure for Cobequid, that he 
or M. de Chauvreulx should first go to Pobomcoup, along with M. 
d'Entremont and Amherst, to use endeavors that restitution may 
be made of the vessel's sails and such other effects as the Indians 
had taken. 

" They, thereunto, answered His Honor and the Board in a most 
insolent, audacious and disrespectful manner, saying, that abso- 
lutely they would not go, and that they would have nothing to do 
in the affair ; and, being asked if they would not obey the just 
and lawful orders of H. M.'s Government, to which M. de Chau- 
vreulx answered contemptuously with unbecoming air and un- 
mannerly gestures, saying : ' Que je suis ici de la part du Roi 
de France,' and M. de St. Poncy affrontingly affirming the same 
also, in words to the same effect. 

"His Honor therefore told them that he had a mind to send 
them to France. 

" They replied with a laugh and a most haughty insolent air : 
' with all their hearts,' then turn their backs and went out of the 
room, seemingly in a great passion, slamming and throwing the 
doors in a most rude and insolent manner, and without His 
Honor's leave left the Board. 

" Then M. d'Entremont being called, he said he was very sorry 
for it, for it was his opinion that the most expedient method to 
bring these Indians to reason and restitution would be to send a 



176 IMPERIOUSNESS. 

priest ; a priest being also much needed to baptize and administer 
the Sacrament. 

" It was resolved to send them out of the Province. 

" Whereupon, the two priests appearing again, their sentence 
was read ; they resumed their former insolence, calling for chairs 
to sit down, saying that they did not appear as criminals, and that 
they had no business with things temporal.'" 

Had the Compiler produced the declaration of M. de 
St. Poncy, which Armstrong communicated to the Lords 
of Trade with the minutes of the Council, we should 
probably be better able to understand the situation. 
After all, even according to Armstrong's own statement, 
it was a storm in a tea-cup. The demand was an impo- 
sition, though it might have been accepted if preferred 
as a polite request and not as an insulting command. 
How that command was intimated to them is what we 
should know in order to be in a position to judge ; but, 
even though this detail be not known, Armstrong is 
sufficiently known ; we know he had the knack of 
offending everybody, and that his difficulties were almost 
always the consequence of his petulance and fits of 
anger. It must have been so in this case ; otherwise it 
would be inexplicable that two persons, even though 
not clothed with the priestly dignity, should become, 
both at the same moment, on hearing an unforeseen, or 
apparently unforeseen injunction, so enraged as to 
answer and act as the minutes of the Council represent 
them. This is a most exceptional proceeding : a polite 
request is usually followed by a polite reply, and an 
insolence generally proceeds from a previous insolence 
either in the form of words, the attitude and manner, 
or in the matter, by uttering an imperious order when 
one has only the right to make a request. Armstrong 
prudently throws a veil over his own manner on that 



FLOATING A BRIGANTINE. 177 

occasion ; but if one examine closely, he will see there 
was question here of an order, which was more than he 
had a right to use, on a point that did not regard the 
duties of these priests ; but even this does not alto- 
gether suffice to explain the contents of the minutes of 
the Council ; the order must have been accompanied by 
unbecoming conduct, or perhaps there may be some 
other fact which we do not know. As in the case of 
M. de Breslay, I am of opinion that Armstrong, here 
also, only makes known a part of the proceedings, and 
that what is omitted is the most important part. 

To support my statement I have at hand a document 
that would warrant very different conclusions, were I 
not distrustful of possible rashness in deciding ques- 
tions of this nature. The document bears upon this 
very incident. It seems that the religious persecution 
which Armstrong exercised upon the Acadians of Anna- 
polis had become so intolerable that they addressed a 
petition to the King of France to interpose in their 
favor with the English government, so as to put an end 
to the persecution by determining more precisely the 
position and the duties of the French priests in Acadia. 

" We beseech," say they, " Your Majesty to permit us to repre- 
sent the sad situation to which we are reduced, declaring truly 
that in the parish of Annapolis Royal, May 29th, 1736, contrary to 
the treaty and to all the promises made to us when we took the oath 
of fealty to His Majesty George II., Governor Armstrong forbade 
Messrs. de St. Poncy and Chauvreulx, our two missionary priests, 
as worthy ones as we have ever had, forbade them, we repeat, to 
say mass, to enter the church, to hear our confessions, administer 
the sacraments to us, and discharge any of their ecclesiastical 
functions, arrested and obliged them to depart, though the gov- 
ernor, or other persons whom he had gained over to his opinion, 
were unable to show or prove that our above-named missionaries 
have any other faults than those of which they pretend to find 



PERSECUTION. 

them guilty, namely, not to have been willing to go far from our 
parish to float a brigantine, which in no way concerns our mis- 
sionaries and their functions. 

" On the following Sunday the governor assembled the deputies 
and forbade them to do anything or say any prayer in the chapel 
up the river. These are the sad and deplorable conjunctures to 
which we are daily exposed with respect to our religion, which 
oblige us to implore respectfully Your Majesty, that you would 
deign to have determined and permanently settled the conditions 
by which our missionaries may hereafter abide, in order that we 
may not be deprived of spiritual succor, at the least whim of those 
who command." 

Thus, therefore, according to this document, which 
did not proceed ab irato as Armstrong's letters generally 
did, it was not, or it was not only, in order to make the 
Indians restore the effects they had carried away from 
a shipwrecked vessel, that Armstrong ordered M. de 
St. Poncy to repair to Pobomcoup, but also to oblige 
him to help in floating this stranded vessel. Thus 
Armstrong was imposing on a French subject and a 
missionary the compulsory labor he was wont to exact, 
and had the right to exact from the Acadians, as being 
British subjects. If such were the case, and the affirm- 
ation of the many persons that signed the petition is 
surely worth Armstrong's counter-affirmation, we find 
ourselves in presence of an act of persecution and abuse 
of authority that is a worthy complement to what we 
already know of him. This fact explains in a rational 
manner the insolence of which Armstrong complained, 
and it would be difficult to explain it otherwise than by 
an act of this character. 

Moreover, even though his severities towards the two 
missionaries had been justifiable, was not his forbidding 
the Acadians to make use of the church to pray therein 
another equally tyrannical act? The author of the one 



PERSECUTION. 179 

might very well be the author of the other. Can any- 
thing but a long series of arbitrary acts and persecu- 
tions, of which, in fact, the petition complains, have 
forced these people to implore the intervention of the 
King of France in their favor ? * 

From all that precedes it must be evident that the 
volume of the archives is much too fragmentary and 
incomplete for the purposes of history. With all my 
efforts to complete it by the analysis of what it contains 
and by my researches in other quarters, I feel that the 
result is unsatisfactory ; but I experience at least the 
satisfaction of a conscientious effort to throw some light 
on this " Lost Chapter." The reader must have already 
understood what methods the Compiler follows, and also 
that, when I accuse him of partiality and bad faith, I 
assert nothing without powerful reasons therefor. 

As we are just now concerned with the Acadian 
clergy, I shall immediately complete my view of them. 
The facts I have pointed out must be the most im- 
portant of the individual cases, for they are almost the 
only ones that have found a place in the volume of the 
archives. Nevertheless, insinuations of a general char- 
acter were not wanting against them ; far from it. 
Often, indeed, were complaints made of their influence 
and the exercise of this influence over the Acadians. It 
was supposed that the priests did all in their power to 

When I undertook this work, I intended to publish only a series of 
articles in rectification of what I deemed the errors of an article inserted 
in " The Week " of Toronto from the pen of the historian, Stevens Pierce 
Hamilton, who committed suicide at the beginning of this year (1893). 
His conclusions were to a great extent drawn from the affirmations of the 
self- murdered Armstrong and especially of what he said of Messrs. de 
Chauvreulx and de St, Poncy. I thought 'that the intemperance of his pen 
was explained by his suicide, that he who wrote on the eve of his own 
self-destruction was not in a suitable frame of mind to form a sound esti- 
mate of history. This is the reason why I have dropped out his name and 
transformed my articles into the work which I now offer to the public. 



180 PARKMAN EXAGGERATES. 

preserve them in their attachment to France, to avert 
them from the oath and induce them to leave the 
country. We are at liberty to believe that these accu- 
sations were well-founded or not, or that they were so 
to a certain extent. The authorities knew that the 
priests possessed influence over them, they knew that 
the Acadians obstinately refused to take the oath thrust 
upon them ; this was enough to give rise to suspicions, 
which sometimes probably had more or less foundation. 
Here there can be little else than conjecture, and the 
conclusions may vary according to the points of view, 
according to one's greater or less knowledge of the 
behavior of the clergy ; for no doubt this influence, if it 
really were exercised, must have been used discreetly 
enough to make it almost impossible for the authorities 
to detect it. 

Granting the morality of the Acadians which wis 
undoubtedly great, their ignorance which was not less 
so, their peaceful manners, their isolation, their lively 
faith, the strictness of the principles of their religion, 
the clergy's influence over them must have been great. 
But, great though it was, Parkman has exaggerated 
beyond all measure both this influence and its exercise, 
with the evident object of giving a brilliant illustration 
to his favorite theory about the enervating action of the 
clergy on Catholic peoples. Unquestionably, whoever 
abdicates his liberty of thinking and acting in the 
ordinary affairs of life, loses all initiative, becomes ener- 
vated. However, I shall have to animadvert on too many 
greater shortcomings of Parkman's, to hold him to any 
severe account for what is, after all, only an exaggera- 
tion of facts in themselves partly true. I blame him 
only for his exaggerations, which are inexcusable. 



VARIOUS PLANS. 181 

Enough on a point that would call for very special 
treatment. Certain it is that the situation of the priests 
of Acadia at that time was extremely delicate and fraught 
with danger. They were French subjects and mission- 
aries to their compatriots in an English country bor- 
dering on the French possessions, where the interests of 
both nations were frequently in direct conflict. Their 
position was awkward and difficult in many ways, and 
the remedy to this state of things equally difficult to 
find. 

Armstrong thought of replacing these French priests 
by others of English or Irish nationality. This project 
could not have been realized : a move in that direction 
would have provoked the departure of the Acadians. 
The only remedy to this anomalous situation was to 
create among the Acadians a national clerg}^. The 
authorities could reasonably say to them: We are 
loyally bound to grant you the free exercise of your 
religion ; but in our interest and yours, to save you and 
to save us from a delicate situation, beset with dangers, 
it is becoming that your priests be chosen from among 
your children, in order that their interests may be 
identical with yours. As this cannot be accomplished 
at short notice, we give you eight or ten years to attain 
this object. We shall permit two French priests, of 
whom one will be stationed at Mines and the other at 
Annapolis, to be exclusively occupied in educating 
young men for the priesthood. After this period has 
elapsed, you must provide for yourselves, and we will 
no longer permit any French priests to enter into the 
province, at least so long as France will be our neigh- 
bor. 

This plan does not seem to have occurred to any one 



182 VARIOUS PLANS. 

at the time ; it probably did not even enter the mind 
of any of the governors. Until 1730, the question of 
the oath and of the departure of the Acadians occupied 
too much place to leave room for any such design. 
After 1730, Armstrong, as I have just said, thought of 
English or Irish priests ; but the only project enter- 
tained in the sequel was, either to expel the Catholic 
priests and replace them by French Protestant ministers, 
introducing at the same time among the Acadian popu- 
lation French Protestants or simply English ministers 
and English colonists, as we shall see later on. There 
was sometimes a tendency to adopt the first project, 
because it was thought more acceptable to the Acadians ; 
but oftenest the second prevailed. The sentiments of 
the Acadians thereon must have been little known to 
those who conceived either plan, and imagined that 
they would submit to such a poorly disguised conspiracy. 
To formulate such a plan supposes that respect for 
treaties, for conventions, for promises and for liberty of 
conscience must have been greatly weakened, though, 
indeed, it must be said, to the honor of the Home Govern- 
ment, that these iniquitous projects formed at Anna- 
polis and Boston never received, as far as I can see, the 
least encouragement in London. 

I am considering in this chapter only the attitude of 
the clergy from the treaty of Utrecht till 1740. I am 
trying to show it in a light that will most truly and 
clearly set forth their share in the events of this epoch. 
The best way to do this is to examine the state of minds 
at this time and the interests on which the influence of 
this clergy could be exercised. It is well known that 
prejudices and fanaticism were never more rife. We 
naturally expect expressions of contempt from Protes- 



WHAT HAUNTED THE GOVERNORS. 183 

tants to Catholics and from Catholics to Protestants in 
conversation and private documents ; but, in perusing 
the archives of Nova Scotia, we are astounded to find 
that even these public documents are full of invective. 
Armstrong and his predecessors, in their dispatches to 
the Lords of Trade, invariably use such expressions as 
"Papists," "Popish superstition," "Mass house," etc., 
etc. " What better proof of their bad faith can I give ? " 
said Armstrong, " they are papists." 

So long as Catholics and Protestants struggled in 
each state to remain or to become the dominant element, 
the persecution was intense and plots frequent. When 
the fight for supremacy was over, this gradually abated ; 
but there remained the settled idea that the minority 
were always plotting, whereas in reality, if there were 
still any plot, it was oftenest that of the conqueror to 
definitively crush the conquered. The human mind is 
inclined to fall into extremes on questions of this sort. 
Men either sleep peacefully while their enemy is work- 
ing out their ruin, or they are morbidly sensitive to 
imaginary intrigues that have no foundation in fact. 
Thus were the governors of Acadia haunted by the idea 
that the priests were constantly conspiring against the 
safety of the state. 

The better to comprehend the situation, let us con- 
sider the points on which the influence of the clergy 
could be brought to bear. First, there was the question 
of the oath and of the departure. Did they use their 
influence for either alternative? There is room for 
doubt, but I think it probable that some of the priests 
did to some extent seek to persuade or confirm the 
Acadians in the idea of departure or of an oath with 
proper restrictions. 



184 NO PRIESTLY CONSPIRACY. 

Practically, outside the fantastical picture drawn by 
Parkman, here is what generally happens and what 
must naturally have happened at that time. Priests are 
not wanting whom no one dreams of consulting about 
worldly matters, because, devoted entirely to spiritual 
concerns, they hold themselves entirely aloof from 
purely temporal interests. Others there are who are 
very glad to give their opinion when asked ; these are 
consulted by a small number of persons, and their opin- 
ion has more or less weight according to the importance 
of the question and the reputation for wisdom they may 
have earned. Finally, there are others, few in number, 
who seek to impose their ideas and sometimes by unduly 
interposing spiritual motives ; but, in such cases, there 
is almost always agitation, murmuring, discord, religious 
coldness, decrease of influence. One single interposi- 
tion of this kind by a priest is more remarked than the 
silence of twenty others, and, at a distance, the noisy 
exception easily passes for the rule. Thus perhaps 
may be explained Parkman's extravagant exaggerations. 
The rule, however, was not different then from what it 
is to-day, since, fifteen years later, Abbe* Le Loutre was 
severely reprimanded by the Bishop of Quebec for 
having meddled with temporal affairs that did not con- 
cern him, contrary to the instructions the bishop had 
given him. 

I am of opinion, however, that the majority of the 
priests expressed privately their opinion on this ques- 
tion of the oath and the departure, but that opinion was 
so obvious and so manifestly correct that this expression 
of it was not necessary and had probably but little influ- 
ence on the result of the deliberations. Even were it 
otherwise, it would be very hard to blame a wise and 



CLERICAL PLACE-KEEPERS. 185 

prudent influence exerted on the exercise of a right so 
evident as was that of the departure, and on a petition 
so reasonable as was that of adding the restrictive 
clause to the oath. It was certainly not conspiracy to 
repeat to the Acadians what they could not otherwise 
be ignorant of: that they had the right to quit the 
country, that obstacles to their departure were unjust, 
that, if they remained, they should impose the condition 
of not being required to bear arms against the French. 
What can very properly be termed conspiracy is the 
action of the governors from Nicholson to Armstrong, 
who had recourse to all imaginable artifices to prevent 
the Acadians from taking advantage of the treaty. 
Moreover, if these priests exercised so much influence, 
it is astonishing that the Acadians, shortly after the 
treaty of Utrecht, offered to remain if they were ex- 
empted from bearing arms against the French, at a 
time when France, by this decision, would be deprived 
of all the strength that this population would have 
added. Either the priests did only feebly interpose in 
these questions, or they did not, as people seem to think, 
busy themselves with the interests of France, or, at any 
rate they gave precedence to the interests of the Aca- 
dians. 

Nevertheless, it need hardly be said that in those days 
of rampant prejudices, any interposition of the priests, 
however insignificant in itself, must have aroused great 
anger against them. If such would have been the feel- 
ings of purely civil rulers, how much greater must have 
been the anger of a military authority at a time when 
its designs could not be thwarted without peril. 

Still, I believe, and all the evidence confirms this be- 
lief, that the action of the clergy was on the whole con- 



186 AN ASTOUNDING FACT. 

ducive to the preservation of peace and the submission 
of the Acadians. Was there during this period of 
almost thirty years, from 1713 to 1740, a single insur- 
rection, even a threat to trouble the peace, or a simple 
brawl? Was there as much as one act of resistance to 
the orders of the authority, or even one single murder ? 
I see no trace of anything of the kind in the whole vol- 
ume of the archives. During all this time there was, 
properly speaking, only one serious cause of dissension, 
always the same, the difficulty about taking the oath. 

Over and over again were the Acadians ordered to 
meet and send delegates to Annapolis ; sometimes anger 
got the upper hand, and these delegates, simple bearers 
of a general decision, were put in irons ; and yet, in 
spite of this provocation to disobedience, did they ever 
refuse to obey these orders? Is it not astonishing 
that so many hindrances, so many base subterfuges were 
unable to produce a single act of prolonged insubor- 
dination, when the government, with its little garrison 
of one hundred to one hundred and fifty soldiers, was 
unable to constrain by main force a population compar- 
atively numerous, scattered in places of difficult access, 
in summer difficult, in winter impossible? This is, if 
well pondered, the most astounding fact in the present 
history, and it must be well understood in order to 
appreciate all the rest. It may, therefore, be a mere 
matter of justice to give the clergy some credit for it 
especially if they had as much influence as is generally 
attributed to them. The advantages I have had for 
forming a correct judgment on this point and the inten- 
sity of my meditations thereon have, I make bold to 
say, never been equalled by any of those who have 
written on this subject : I know whereof I speak. This 



EXTRAORDINARY OBEDIENCE. 187 

point being understood, the reader will be convinced, in 
spite of appearances, that I am not indulging in special 
pleading, but that I am chronicling facts in all their 
simplicity. 

In spite of the noisy and ill-sounding expressions of 
Philipps and Armstrong, which maybe imputed to their 
vexation at not being able to force the Acadians to take 
the oath, I do not find, from 1713 to 1740, a single well- 
grounded, or rather well-defined complaint against them, 
except the following : 

From 1720 to 1724 there were general hostilities of 
Indians on all the frontier of these English colonies and 
particularly in Maine. In Nova Scotia they were lim- 
ited rather to depredations than to a serious open war. 
Eleven Indians seized a merchant vessel in Mines Basin 
and plundered it. Philipps was highly indignant be- 
cause the Acadians of the place had not interfered to 
oppose the seizure of this boat, or to hunt down these 
Indians. The Acadians were ordered to prepare a 
document in which they were to express " in unequiv- 
ocal terms, the enormity of their offence ; " and this 
document, signed by all the inhabitants, must be deliv- 
ered by the delegates and the parish priest of the place, 
and the value of the effects carried off must be paid by 
them. All which was faithfully done. 

This happened at the beginning of the year 1721, 
when Philipps had just ordered the Acadians either to 
leave the country without carrying anything away or to 
take the oath, and when he had just forbidden them to 
open a road so as to withdraw from the province. It is 
probable that the Acadians preferred to sign such a 
document and reimburse the losses rather than to expose 
themselves to the vengeance of the Indians ; for we 



188 THE CLERGY SAVED CANADA. 

know, from other sources, that those who displayed their 
zeal against the Indians had to suffer disastrous ven- 
geance from the latter, the government being powerless 
to protect them. Philipps acted very injudiciously in 
exacting such amends when he had just shown himself 
so unjust and cruel towards the Acadians. It was 
precisely in order to avoid the reprisals to which they 
would be exposed from the Indians, that they had 
stipulated for exemption from bearing arms against 
them, and it was on account of this same danger that, 
for forty years, English colonists could not be persuaded 
to settle in the country. It is not easy to understand 
why Philipps thus forced the parish-priest of Mines to 
take part in the delegation, if the governor was so 
anxious to exclude the priests from all temporal affairs. 
Did he think that the priest himself should have taken 
up arms to repulse the Indians ? 

The influence of the clergy, I repeat, must have been 
exercised to foster peace and submission to the author- 
ities. All the history of Canada is there to prove this 
assertion. After the treaty of Paris, the Bishop of 
Quebec even went so far as to excommunicate those 
who would not submit to the English government, and 
five persons were, in virtue of this excommunication, 
deprived of Catholic burial. If Canada is still a British 
possession, England owes it to this same influence. Let 
the situation of Canada in 1775 be borne in mind. The 
country was governed in a military, that is, despotic 
manner, and did not contain five thousand Englishmen. 
France had just thrown her sword into the scales on the 
side of the revolted colonies. Lafayette deputed French- 
men to Quebec and Montreal to incite the people to 
shake off the yoke of the Home Government. The clergy 



THE CLERGY SAVED CANADA. 189 

opposed with all its might any collusion with the United 
States, the people took up arms to defend their soil, and 
the country remained English. After the victory of Tra- 
falgar, so disastrous for France, a solemn Te Deum was 
sung in the Cathedral of Quebec. In 1837, in spite of 
well-founded grievances, much more serious than those 
which gave rise to the independence of the United 
States, it was still the clergy's efforts that paralyzed the 
rebellion and made it miscarry. Whether or not these 
proceedings of the religious authority be approved, they 
are none the less a fact, they constitute none the less, 
for the clergy, a point of tradition, if not of absolute 
doctrine. They hold that there can be no lawful revolt 
against legitimate authority, except when persecution 
becomes intolerable and when religious interests are 
gravely threatened in their very foundations. If Canada 
were ever to separate from the mother country by an 
act of rebellion, I do not hesitate to say that the 
Catholic clergy would be the last bulwark of British 
union, the last refuge of toryism. 

It was not otherwise in Acadia. The priests might 
desire that the country should again become a French 
colony, much more through fear of religious fanaticism 
than through pure love of France ; perhaps they may 
have fostered in the Acadians their love for France, they 
may have sometimes advised them as to their rights and 
the means of influencing the authorities of Annapolis, 
counselled them to quit the country when they had a 
right to do so, suggested a restriction to the oath, com- 
municated in general terms to the French authorities 
their fears and their hopes. All these things may be 
supposed, if they cannot be proved, for they are pos- 
sible and even probable. These things may be approved, 



190 THE CLERGY SAVED CANADA. 

blamed, diminished or exaggerated at one's choice ; but 
what cannot be doubted by any one who knows that 
clergy — unless, of course, the fact may have occurred 
exceptionally or in cases of doubtful interpretation — is 
that the priests, whatever may be thought of them in 
other respects, did nothing to make the Acadians swerve 
from their fidelity to the oath and their lawful duties 
towards the English Government. 



A PARAGON. 191 



CHAPTER X. 



Major Paul Mascarene succeeds Armstrong — His character — His 
skill— His success— (1740-1744). 



With lively satisfaction do I now pass to the adminis- 
tration of Mascarene, called to replace Armstrong in 
the office of lieutenant-governor of the province. The 
death of the latter, by creating a vacancy in Philipps's 
regiment, promoted Major Cosby to the rank of lieu- 
tenant-colonel and Captain Mascarene to that of major ; 
but, as first counsellor of the governor, the latter, 
according to custom, became lieutenant-governor of the 
province. 

For several years Mascarene, probably through disgust 
for Armstrong's brutality and eccentricity, and in order 
to avoid the inevitable jars his presence at Annapolis 
might draw upon him, had passed the greatest part of 
his time at Boston. He was still there in the month 
of December, 1739, when Armstrong put an end to his 
life, and it was only in the following spring that he was 
able to enter on his office. 

It would be difficult to imagine a more striking con- 
trast than that which existed between Mascarene and 
his predecessor. Whereas Armstrong was impetuous, 
fickle and passionate, Mascarene was calm, firm and 
gentle. The one could not stir without getting into 



192 A PARAGON. 

trouble ; the other never gave any trouble at all, and 
had the gift of smoothing down whatever difficulties 
might occur, however complicated they might be. 

Paul Mascarene was the son of a French Protestant 
whom the revocation of the edict of Nantes had obliged 
to go into voluntary exile. While still young, he fol- 
lowed his father first to Geneva and a few years later 
to England. He joined the army and gradually, by 
sheer merit, raised himself to the position in which we 
at present find him. Conciliating, clever, well-instructed, 
of a lofty turn of mind, he gained the esteem and con- 
fidence of everybody. All his correspondence is instinct 
with the same spirit, and gives the highest idea of his 
character and education. It would be difficult to find 
in his conduct a single point that could be seriously 
blamed ; it would be hard to note in his character one 
striking defect ; we behold in him nothing but good 
qualities of a very high order. He could be severe 
nay, very severe, but also as humane and kindly as he 
was severe. He meant to command and be respectfully 
obeyed, and he was obeyed. He was patient, exceed- 
ingly particular ; he pushed the love of details even to 
importunity, but he was loyal, just, compassionate ; and, 
though he did not always succeed in convincing, yet he 
seldom failed in securing most absolute obedience. 
His vigilance bore on the minutest details of his admin- 
istration and extended to the remotest parts of his prov- 
ince. Nothing escaped him ; the least delay, the least 
infringement of his orders and regulations became the 
subject of a long correspondence, in which he paternally 
reprimanded and uttered warnings of danger. He 
punished sometimes ; but most often sent away the 
delinquents with kind words ; and, when he did punish, 



SUPREME ABILITY. 193 

it was only after having heard, weighed, matured his 
decision, and given every chance of self-defence. He 
united in a high degree the most commendable qualities 
of the French character with the sterling worth of the 
English; from the former he took the affability, 
courtesy, regard for the weak, the desire and the art to 
please; from the latter, calmness, determination, wise 
deliberateness and perseverance. Devoted to his office, 
to his duty and to his adopted country, he was even 
more the man of letters of exquisite taste than the 
soldier, and that is what gave him such superiority as 
an administrator. 

His position afforded him a fine opportunity to take 
revenge on the Acadians and the priests for the intoler- 
ance of which his family had been the object. He, how- 
ever, did nothing of the kind. We need no other proof 
of this than the results he obtained in the most diffi- 
cult circumstances of this history ; and his merit was 
all the greater because he had to struggle against the 
prejudices of the people about him and of Shirley, 
governor of Massachusetts, to whom the imperial gov- 
ernment had given a voice in the administration of the 
province. His tact, superior to that of others round 
him and even to Shirley's, showed him the line of con- 
duct he was to adopt in the difficulties incidental to the 
war. Without offending anybody, his skill triumphed 
over all opposition ; and I have no hesitation in declar- 
ing that not one of the governors who preceded or fol- 
lowed him would have been able to overcome so many 
obstacles. He had that supreme ability which is the 
result of high breeding in a man gifted with a clear 
bright intellect and a noble heart. 

Surrounded with counsellors who knew nothing but 
13 



194 STRICT WITH THE CLERGY. 

the arbitrary ways and rough manners of the camp, his 
natural bias strikes us as having been occasionally fet- 
tered by his environment ; he showed more severity 
than he would have wished, in order to avoid the 
reproach of letting himself be guided by latent sympa- 
thy ; and yet in reality his great powers of observation 
made him understand that mildness and persuasion were 
the most efficacious means of securing the fidelity of 
the Acadians. 

He was especially severe towards the clergy. Was 
he, whose family had suffered persecution and exile on 
account of their religious belief, now giving way to the 
prejudices he must naturally have entertained ? Per- 
haps his family had been humiliated, crushed by this 
same clergy : he, in his turn had now the power they 
formerly had against him ; lie could bend them to obey 
his will, and even his caprices, if he so desired. It would 
not be astonishing if this feeling had sometimes got the 
upper hand in spite of his lofty intelligence and just 
and kindly spirit. Nevertheless, I have good reason to 
think this was not the case. It is true he imposed on 
the clergy numerous restrictions ; but, he always had 
the condescension to discuss them point hy point, and, 
as a general rule, he obtained assent and obedience. 
Moreover, in the particular circumstances in which these 
priests were then placed, I am of opinion that these 
restrictions were for the most part perfectly justifiable. 

The volume of the archives contains five letters of 
Mascarene to the missionaries De la Goudalie and Desen- 
claves, in which he most courteously discusses the 
motives of his restrictions. The Compiler, as usual, 
gives none of the replies ; but, here, at least, their 
presence is not essential, and could merely satisfy our 



STRICT WITH THE CLERGY. 195 

curiosity ; besides, we can often form a sufficiently pre- 
cise estimate of what these replies contained. 

"Another point of your letter," said Mascarene to M. Desen- 
claves, "is that in which you mention the temporal to be some- 
times so connected with the spiritual as not to be able to be di- 
vided." 

Apparently the weight of his reasons produced an 
understanding on this knotty point, for in another letter 
he said to him : 

" I am glad to see from what I wrote to you, that you are sensi- 
ble of the ill consequences that will follow from connecting the 
temporal with the spiritual." 

In another he informs him of the situation in Europe 
and forewarns him against the dangers that a war would 
entail on them and on the Acadians : 

11 The affairs in Europe are much embroiled, and, in case they 
should occasion a rupture between Great Britain and France, the 
missionaries must expect to fall very naturally under suspicion, 
and therefore ought to be more circumspect in their conduct in 
regard to themselves and towards the inhabitants." 

To Abbe* de la Goudalie, vicar-general of the clergy of 
the province, he writes : 

" I found you so well disposed since I have personally known 
you during your residence here to conform to those rules, that I 
make no doubt of your continuing in the same good intention, 
and that by your example and admonitions you will contribute 
to keep the missionaries to act in concert in maintaining the in- 
habitants in their obedience and duty to the government." 

To the same, a year later : 

" I am well satisfied with the assurances you give me on your 
side as well as those of the other missionaries to act in concert in 



196 STUDY THE RULERS. 

maintaining the inhabitants in peace and tranquillity and in their 
duty towards the Government as the oath they have taken obliges 
them to." 

In less than two years, Mascarene, by his so remark- 
ably skilful and just administration, had extirpated all 
causes of dissension. There were none left ; he had 
only to give an order and he was eagerly obeyed in the 
most distant parts of the province, though the only fort he 
had was in ruins, and Ids garrison comprised only 100 able- 
bodied soldiers. These facts are eloquent to show what 
might be expected from this peaceable and submissive 
people, provided they were ruled with equity by humane 
and conciliatory governors. The keystone of all history, 
especially in absolute governments and more especially 
in small ones, is the character of the rulers ; hence the 
care I have taken to give an accurate picture of each of 
the governors. Those who neglect this cannot throw 
light on difficult situations nor faithfully discharge the 
duty incumbent on him who undertakes to write history. 
Some one has said : " Tell me what company you keep, 
and I will tell you what you are." Still more appositely 
may we say : " Give me the character of him who rules, 
and I will tell you the character of the people he rules." 
If this man be an Armstrong, we may unhesitatingly 
declare that, should the population he governs be 
naturally unruly and turbulent, he will be continually 
causing trouble, and perhaps a rebellion ; and that, how- 
ever submissive the population may be, dissensions will 
unavoidably arise even when the situation would call 
for nothing but harmony and peace. If, on the contrary, 
he be a Mascarene, he will maintain order and peace in 
the most difficult crises. The blame, or at least most 
of it, lies at the door of the government. 



CRAMPED FOR ROOM. 197 

Mascarene was hardly installed in his office when he set 
to work to remedy the painful situation in which former 
rulers had placed the Acadians by refusing to them, 
since the treaty of Utrecht, any new grant of lands, 
From 2,500 souls in 1713, the Acadian population had 
reached in 1740 about 9,000 souls, and, nevertheless, 
strange to say, this population was confined within 
the same extent of land as in 1713. Nov. 15, 1740, 
Mascarene, in a letter to the Lords of Trade, represented 
to them in the following terms the injustice and incon- 
veniences of this state of things : 

" The increase of the Acadians calls for some fresh instructions 
how to dispose of them. They have divided and subdivided 
amongst their children the lands they were in possession of. . . 
They applied for new grants which the Governors Philipps and 
Armstrong did not think themselves authorized to favor them with, 
as His Majesty's instructions on that head prescribe the grant of 
unappropriated lands to Protestant subjects only. This long delay 
has occasioned several of them to settle themselves on some of 
the skirts of this Province, pretty far distant from this place, not- 
withstanding Proclamations and orders to the contrary have been 
often repeated. . . . If they are debarred from new possessions, 
they must live here miserably, and, consequently, be troublesome, or 
else, they will possess themselves of new tracts contrary to orders, 
or they must be made to withdraw to the neighboring french 
colony. 

" The French of Cape Breton will naturally watch all opportuni- 
ties of disturbing the peace of this Province, specially at this 
juncture, in case of a war with France ; and, if occasion of dis- 
gust was given to these people here, they would soon make an 
advantage of it, and, by the numbers of these Acadians, they 
would soon distress the garrison if not taking the fort which is in 
a very ruinous condition." 

After this statement it is not astonishing that Arm- 
strong should write : " They are a litigious sort of 
people, and so ill-natured to one another, as daily to 



198 CRAMPED FOR ROOM. 

encroach upon their neighbour's properties." Parkman, 
who has searched every nook and corner to find where- 
with to besmirch the Acadians, did not fail to fasten on 
this sentence. What cared he for Armstrong's charac- 
ter, which, by the way, he was careful not to describe 
to the public? what cared he for the actual circum- 
stances which he passes over in silence ? He had at 
hand what he was looking for, and with this bit of a 
sentence he was able to draw his conclusions against a 
hundred contrary statements : " They were vexed with 
incessant quarrels among themselves arising from the 
unsettled boundaries of their lands," and much more to 
the same effect. Could it be otherwise, when the 
population was four times <os large as in 1713, when their 
lands had been divided and subdivided so as to leave 
nothing but morsels, and when these lands had never been 
surveyed by the government ? With what we know of 
Armstrong, of his character and his exaggeration in all 
things, of his violent language, are we not justified in 
supposing that the expressions he made use of magnified 
beyond measure the grain of truth that constituted the 
foundation of this fact? 

Why does not Parkman, who busies himself so much 
with the character of the Acadians, and always with the 
evident aim of reversing the invariable verdict of 
history, why does he not sometimes, since he is so good 
a judge, make known to us what was the character of 
the governors? It must be easier to judge a man than 
a whole nation. 

After having kept the Acadians in the country in 
spite of themselves, it was a shame to refuse them grants 
of land and thus drive them into indefinite subdivisions. 
This retarded their progress, produced discontent, 



EXTENSIVE BOODLING. 199 

provoked disobedience, troubled harmony, weakened 
their loyalty, exposed the rulers to grave disappoint- 
ment ; such was Mascarene's view. He tells us, indeed, 
that, in spite of injunctions, several took up lands on 
the confines of the province ; but what is surprising 
is that the greater number submitted to such unjust 
orders. I have serious doubts whether the colonists of 
New England, and in fact any other colonists, would have 
submitted during forty years to such a system without 
revolting against authority, especially if that authority 
had been represented by only 100 soldiers or a propor- 
tionately small number? 

Mascarene tells us that the instructions of His 
Majesty were to bestow grants of land only on Protes- 
tant subjects. This is undoubtedly true ; but it is not 
improbable that this order was obtained through the 
influence of those who had voted to themselves a grant of 
100,000 acres of land at Grand Pre* and Beaubassin in 
Armstrong's time, and among whom, besides Armstrong, 
Philipps and his councillors, figured King Gould, 
Allured Popple, Henry Popple, Andrew Robinson, 
Henry Daniels, Esquires, all of England. We know not 
the character of these gentlemen, except that of King 
Gould, who was financial agent for Philipps ; but I 
have good reason to believe that one of them, Allured 
Popple was no less a personage than the Allured Popple 
who was then the Secretary of State. With an inter- 
ested party of such position and influence it was easy to 
secure and maintain the decree excluding the Acadians 
from any new grant, in order to oblige them to buy land 
from these fortunate grantees. In fact, I find nowhere 
that the wise recommendations of Mascarene had their 
effect, and I have reason to believe that this iniquitous 



200 EXTENSIVE BOODLING. 

situation continued till the time of the deportation. 
These lands, granted to the above Englishmen, sur- 
rounded those that were next to the Acadians' lands in 
the two most important centres. This must have been 
a speculation at their expense, like the one that provoked 
and followed their deportation. I have not striven to 
clear up this matter, but I recommend it to Mr. Park- 
man's notice.* 

* This grant, or what was left of it, was escheated on the 21st of April, 
1760, to be granted afresh to Governor Lawrence's councillors after the 
deportation. 



MASCAPwENE ANXIOUS. 201 



CHAPTER XL 

War declared between France and England — Acadia invaded by 
the French under the command of Duvivier and De Ganne — 
Efforts to stir up the Acadians to revolt — The expedition with- 
draws — New expedition by Marin and later by Ramsay — Battle 
of Grand Pre — Fidelity of the Acadians — Testimonies of Masca- 
rene, etc., etc. — The Compiler — Parkman. 

Mascarene's wise and prudent conduct had produced 
the happiest results. Not only had he gained the 
esteem and confidence of all ; but he had in all things 
established regulations and procedures, which, in his 
relations with the clergy and the Acadians, ensured 
harmony and put an end to all the misunderstandings so 
frequent in Armstrong's time. On June 28, 1742, he 
wrote to the Duke of Newcastle : 

" The frequent rumors we have had of war being on the point 
of being declared against France, have not as yet made any alter- 
ation in the temper of the Acadians, who appear in a good disposi- 
tion of keeping to their oath of fidelity, and of submitting to the 
orders and regulations of this government for maintaining peace." 

However, he was still very anxious ; he knew that, if 
the French invaded Nova Scotia, they would not fail to 
make great efforts to persuade the Acadians to join 
them. His fort was in ruins ; he had only five com- 
panies of thirty-one men each, a third of whom were 
invalids. In his letter of December, 1743, to the 
Secretary of State, he complained bitterly of his 
situation : 



202 LOYALTY SECURED. 

"The inhabitants are all French Roman Catholics ; in case of a 
rupture with France, it is as much as we can expect if we can 
keep them from joining with the enemy or being stirred up by 
them to rebel. To prevent this, I have used the best means I 
could by making them sensible of the advantage and ease they 
enjoy under the British Government, whereby to wean them from 
their old masters, but to do this effectually, a considerable time 
will be required, this Province in the meantime is in a worse con- 
dition for defence than the other American Plantations." 

War was declared on March 15th of the following year 
(1744). This untoward event was going to submit 
the fidelity of the Acadians to a hard trial. With a few 
more years of peace, Mascarene, by following the line 
of conduct which his tact and benignity dictated to 
him, would have been able, as he hoped, to give rise to 
a solid sentiment of loyalty based on ties of affection 
and gratitude strong enough to resist all allurements. 
His methods and his results would have been a safe 
precedent, from which his successors would not have 
dared to depart. 

France, which had done so little to colonize and 
preserve Acadia, had never lost the hope of reconquer- 
ing it ; and it is evident, from the documents of French 
origin, that the authorities of Canada nattered them- 
selves with the hope that the Acadians would seize on 
the opportunity about to be offered them of shaking off 
the English yoke. The course of events will, however, 
show that the fears of Mascarene and the hopes of the 
French had no foundation. 

If Mascarene had not had time to establish the loyalty 
of the Acadians on the more lasting basis of affection, 
this loyalty was none the less really established on the 
grounds of interest and of respect for the oath : u Their 
plea with the French who pressed them to take up 



ACADIANS HARRIED BY THE FRENCH. 203 

arms," said Mascarene in 1748, when the war had come 
to an end, " was their oath ; their living easy under the 
Government, and their having no complaint to make 
against it." This was the result of a few years of a just 
and conciliatory administration. 

During four years Acadia was invaded at least four 
times by the French; Annapolis was besieged three 
times, always in the hope of taking it with the concur- 
rence of the Acadians, for whom they had brought arms ; 
but they were obliged just so many times to withdraw 
without this concurrence, and without having made any 
serious attempt. Every means was tried to overcome 
the resistance of the Acadians. From flatteries the 
French passed to threats, and from threats to open 
force, without shaking their determination, and this 
happened at Beaubassin as well as at Grand Pre* and 
Annapolis. 

The disappointment of the French must have been 
extreme to induce them to have recourse to such means, 
since the result could not fail to diminish the sympathy 
the Acadians must naturally have felt for the French. 

After having exhausted all the means of persuasion, 
Duvivier and de Ganne, who commanded the first expe- 
dition, issued the most severe orders : 

11 We order you to deliver up your arms, ammunitions . . . and 
those who contravene these orders shall be punished and delivered 
into the hands of the Indians, as we cannot refuse the demands 
these savages make for all those who will not submit themselves." 

Here is one of the replies of the Acadians : 

" We, the inhabitants of Mines, Grand Pre, River Canard, Pigi- 
guit and the surrounding rivers, beg that you will be pleased to 
consider that while there would be no difficulty, by virtue of the 



204 ACADIANS HARRIED BY THE FRENCH. 

strong force you command, in supplying yourself with the quan- 
tity of grain and meat you have ordered, it would be quite impos- 
sible for us to furnish you the quantity you demand, or even a 
smaller, without placing ourselves in great peril. 

" We hope, gentlemen, that you will not plunge both ourselves 
and our families into a state of total loss ; and that this considera- 
tion will cause you to withdraw your savages and troops from 
our districts. 

" We live under a mild and tranquil Government, and we have 
all good reason to be faithful to it. We hope therefore, that you 
will have the goodness not to separate us from it, and that you 
will grant us the favor not to plunge us into utter misery. This 
we hope from your goodness, assuring you that we are with much 
respect. 

Your very humble and obedient servants, 

Acting for the communities above mentioned, 
Jacques Le Blanc, Pierre Le Blanc, 
Francois Le Blanc, Rene X Granger his mark, Claude Le Blanc. 
Jacques Teriau, Antoine Landry, Joseph X Granger his mark, 
Pierre Richard,* Rene Le Blanc. 

Mines, 14 Oct. 1744." 

"We have remaining," says Murdoch, "as many as twelve or- 
ders issued by Duvivier from the French camp, of this nature, com- 
manding the services of individuals by name — the furnishing horses 
and men to lead them, the bringing in powder, horns, etc., the 
swearing allegiance by the deputies and elders, furnishing ladders, 
pickaxes, shovels, cattle, wheat — baking of bread — to forbid buy- 
ing arms — the supplying of shirts, furnishing canoes, etc., etc. 
Disobedience to these, is usually menaced with death, sometimes 
with corporal punishment. . . I do not know whether we should 
attribute this to the pride of noblesse, then so predominant, to the 
harshness of military sentiment at that time, or to personal in- 
capacity on the part of Duvivier ; but, from whatever source, I 
look on it as having been fatal to his cause." f 

* Brother of my ancestor Rene* Richard, who came to Canada after the 
deportation. 

f " Duvivier issued peremptory orders to the Acadians for supplies. . . 
Notwithstanding his threat, the Acadians were very unwilling to give him 
any assistance, and his bright hopes of a spontaneous rising of the Aca- 
dian people against British power vanished before the chilling reality. 
A new generation had grown up who were not disposed to welcome those 
who would bring war to their doors.— Hannay, History of Acadia. 



DUVIVIER. BAFFLED. 205 

The hasty retreat of Duvivier can be explained only 
by the disappointment he must have felt in not being 
supported b}' the Acadians. A French squadron was 
daily expected in Annapolis harbor, and nothing seemed 
to call for the raising of the siege. This squadron, 
bearing 75 guns, arrived a few days after his departure. 
Not finding the troops he had reckoned upon meeting 
there, unable with his crews alone to reduce the garrison, 
the commander put out to sea again without having 
made any attempt. This new hasty departure was as 
disastrous to the French as had been that of Duvivier, 
for there came from Boston, four days after this de- 
parture, a whole convoy laden with provisions and 
ammunition for the garrison, which would have un- 
avoidably fallen into the hands of the commander of 
the French squadron. 

Hannay, speaking of the expedition of Duvivier, says : 
" Duvivier, unsuccessful at Annapolis, returned to Mines, 
where he proposed to remain for the winter with his 
soldiers, but the Acadians sent in such a strongly worded 
remonstrance that he was constrained to withdraw. At 
Beaubassin he found the people equally averse to his 
remaining and finally returned to Louisbourg." 

As soon as war was declared, Mascarene actively 
employed himself in putting the fort of Annapolis, the 
only one in the province, in fit condition to resist a 
siege. These works were considerable, since the walls 
had fallen into ruins. For the materials especially, but 
even for the manual labor, he could count but little on 
any but the Acadians. Of course in strict justice, they 
were bound to do this work ; nevertheless the actual 
doing of it was a great proof of good will. Mascarene 
had gained such an ascendancy over them that they 



206 ACADIANS REPAIR FORT. 

never made any objection. Writing to Shirley he said : 
" The Acadians showed themselves ready, not only to 
get the timber necessary for that kind of work, but to 
be employed in the repairs, when, on the 1st of July, 
the first party of Indians, consisting of about 300, came 
to interrupt us." 

Later, after the departure of Duvivier, Mascarene 
resumed the works that had been abandoned and 
demanded anew the assistance of the Acadians : " I also 
prevailed with the deputies of the Acadians of this 
river," said he to Shirley, "to furnish the engineer the 
material requisite for our repairs, which they seemed to 
undertake and perform cheerfully." 

The fruitless expedition of Duvivier was followed in 
the succeeding year by that of Captain Marin with the 
same results. 

The moral decadence of France, commenced under 
Louis XIV., continued and hastened under the regency, 
was, under Louis XV., about to consummate its degra- 
dation and provoke the great catastrophe which would 
later ruin or regenerate it. This moral degeneracy had 
its effect on the warlike virtues of the nation, and this 
war was going to give the measure of the evil. Watch- 
ful England was ready to realize this, and to take upon 
itself, a few years later, the task of completing the 
humiliation of a too restless rival, by overthrowing its 
prestige and depriving it of what might yet re-establish 
its strength and its renown. 

England's apprehensions were greatly relieved when 
it became evident that the Duke D'Anville's powerful 
fleet, dispersed by storms, weakened and demoralized by 
death, sickness and dissensions, was no longer to be 
dreaded. 



GRAND PEE RAID. 207 

De Ramesay, who had waited under the walls of 
Annapolis for the co-operation of this fleet, was obliged 
to withdraw upon Mines and soon after on Beaubassin. 

Here comes the only glorious feat of arms for France 
in this part of the country, and it was accomplished by 
the Canadians whom de Ramesay commanded. While 
this officer was at Beaubassin, Mascarene, after having 
revictualled Annapolis, stationed in the district of 
Mines a detachment of 470 men commanded by Colonel 
Noble of Massachusetts. This armed body were billeted 
for the time being at the village of Grand Pre in the 
houses of the Acadians. De Ramesay conceived the 
daring project of traversing on snowshoes the long 
distance that separated him from Grand Pr6, and of 
surprising during the night the troops stationed there ; 
a raid which, though it won renown for the Canadians, 
produced no practical result. 

We have seen, from divers extracts, what was the 
attitude of the Acadians during these four years of 
repeated invasion by the French troops; let us now 
listen to other testimonies gleaned from the correspond- 
ence of Governor Mascarene himself. 

At different times he bears witness that, during the 
intervals between these successive expeditions, the 
Acadians came to inform him of the movements of the 
French and to work at putting the foundations in a fit 
state to withstand their attacks. 



To Governor Philipps, on June 9th 1744, he writes : "I have 
done all in my power to keep the Acadians in their fidelity who 
promise fair and as yet assist ns in repairing our breaches." 

To the Lords of Trade on the same date : ' ' These latter (the 
Acadians) have given me assurances of their resolution to keep 
in their fidelity to His Majesty, which they seem to justify in 



208 MASCARENE PRAISES THE ACADIANS. 

having hitherto given us their assistance in the works going on for 
the repairs of this Fort, which according to my former represen- 
tations of the nature of these inhabitants is the utmost we can ex- 
pect from them." 

To the Secretary of War, July 2nd 1744 : " The Acadians of this 
river have kept hitherto in their fidelity, and no ways joined witJi 
the enemy, who has killed most of their cattle, and the priest re- 
siding amongst them has behaved also as an honest man, though 
none of them dare come to us at present. They helped in the re- 
pairing of our works to the very day preceding the attack.'''' 

To Governor Shirley, July 28th 1744: "The Acadians, as soon 
as the Indians withdrew from us, brought us provisions and con- 
tinue to testify their resolution to keep to their fidelity as long as 
we keep this fort. Two deputies arrived yesterday from Mines, 
who have brought me a paper containing an association signed by 
most of the inhabitants of that place to prevent cattle being trans- 
ported to the French, according to the prohibition sent them from 
hence. These Acadians are certainly in a very perillous situation. 
Those who pretend to be their friends and old masters having let 
loose a parcel of banditti to plunder them, whilst on the other 
hand they see themselves threatened with ruin and destruction if 
they failed in their allegiance to the British Government." 

To King Gould, on the same date : u The Acadians still keep 
in their fidelity and have not anyways joined with the enemy, 
but we have lost their assistance in the repairing of our works, 
they being in dread of the Indians." 

To Dec. 1744 : " To the timely succour received from the 

Governor of Massachusetts, and our French inhabitants refusing 
to take up arms against us ice owe our preservation. If the Acadi- 
ans had taken up arms they might have brought three or four 
thousand men against us." 

To dear Ladevese, 1747, at the close of the war : " The great 

french Armada under Duke D'Anville which would have swal- 
lowed us up, was by God's Providence, weakened and shattered by 
sickness and storms. . . In these several struggles I used our 
Acadians with so much mildness, administered justice so impar- 
tially and employed all the skill I was master of in managing them 
to so good purpose, that, though the enemy brought near two 
thousand men in arms in the midst of them, and used all the 
means of cajoling and threatening to make them take up arms, 
having brought spare ones for that end, they could not prevail 
upon above twenty to join them." 



THE COMPILER AT HIS TRICKS. 209 

To the Duke of Bedford, June 15th 1748, after the war: "The 
repeated attempts of the enemy on Nova Scotia have not had the 
success they expected ; and, notwithstanding the means they 
have used to entice or force into open rebellion the Acadians, who 
are all of french extraction and papists, they have not been able 
to prevail except upon a few of them ; and, after having entered 
this province three different times, with forces far superior to 
what could be opposed to them, they were at last obliged to retire 
to Quebec." 

Two months later, in August, 1748, Mascarene ordered 
Lieutenant-Colonel Gorham "to proceed to Mines to 
pay the Acadians for provisions and other necessaries, 
also for labor and losses incurred by them for houses 
burnt and fences destroyed to the value of over ten 
thousand pounds." 

I would have the reader remark, in passing, that none 
of the letters quoted above are found in the volume of 
the archives except two, which are the least important. 
I would also have him remark that, from July 4, 1740, 
to October 27, 1745, this volume contains forty-three 
documents of divers kinds, while it contains not a single 
one from October, 1745 to April, 1748. 

Why, one naturally asks, this accumulation of forty- 
three documents within the four years before the war 
and nothing within the three years during the war, that 
is, during the most important period? The reason is 
not far to seek; it is always the same: suppression is so 
plainly a set plan that one only need open his eyes to 
detect it. Before the war Mascarene entertained doubts 
of the fidelity of the Acadians and gave utterance to 
them ; in the first years of his administration he had 
discussions by letter with the priests before inducing 
them to accept his regulations concerning themselves 

and concerning the Acadians. These documents also 
14 



210 MURDOCH DEFENDS ACADIANS. 

contained remarks favorable to the Acadians, which 
the Compiler could not easily separate : he has allowed 
a few of them to pass. But, to include the documents 
of the period of the war, was to make known to the 
public that the Acadians had been faithful to their oath 
in the most perplexing of situations. Therefore, these 
documents must not be included. So manifest is this 
set purpose of his, that, in spite of this gap of three 
years he found means, before creating the gap, to in- 
sert in a note a letter of M. de Beauharnois to the minis- 
ter at Paris, in which this gentleman expressed the hopes 
he entertained that the French would be supported 
by the Acadians. This document is, clearly, foreign to 
the archives, but the Compiler, however shortsighted he 
may sometimes be, has found means to ferret out this 
one somewhere. Nevertheless, this document had no 
real importance. Hopes ! why, every one has them ; 
M. de Beauharnois was welcome to have his ; he was 
quite free to believe that the Acadians would take up 
arms against the English. But the real facts were far 
more important, and they were to be found in the docu- 
ments of which the Compiler has deprived us just in the 
very place where he has created a gaping void. History 
is based on facts, not on the vague hopes of this or that 
individual. 

Both the fears of the English and the hopes of the 
French had, therefore, no serious foundation, as the above 
citations abundantly prove. This war had submitted 
the fidelity of the Acadians to a hard trial, such as ought 
to give the exact measure of what might be hoped from 
them under equitable treatment. " When we consider 
these matters," says Murdoch, summing up the events of 
this war, " we see more clearly how it was that the little 



MUPwDOCH DEFENDS ACADIANS. 211 

army from Louisbourg, while it was largely reinforced 
by the Micmac warriors, who had always been taught to 
believe that the French king had not ceded their terri- 
torial rights, received no effective aid from the Acadians. 
Although there were always a portion of the inhabitants 
of Beaubassin positively disaffected to English rule, in 
the other settlements of Cobequid, Pigiquit, Grand Pre, 
River Canard, as well on the Annapolis river, there were 
very few persons who were even suspected of willingly aid- 
ing the invasion, and Duvivier received as little support 
from the Acadians after he crossed the Avon, as 
Prince Charles Stewart did in the next year after cross- 
ing the Tweed." Mascarene had notified the Acadians 
that their neutrality did not relieve them from the duty 
of instructing him with the movements of the French 
whenever they could ; as a result, the latter never moved 
to another place without having previously guarded the 
roads, to prevent them from communicating with the 
English. 

It is undoubtedly true, as Mascarene says, that the 
French had " a few sympathizers amongst them." He 
fixes the number at about twenty. This account seems 
to me exact, considering that it fairly tallies with 
French reports. Twelve of these sympathizers were 
arrested upon the denunciations of Acadians. How- 
ever, it should be carefully noted that no Acadians were 
arrested for having taken up arms, but only for having 
advised and assisted the enemy, or for having neglected 
to give information to the authorities when they were 
able to do so. The names of those twelve persons are: 
Louis Gauthier and his two sons, Armand Bugeaud, 
Joseph LeBlanc dit Le Maigre, Charles and Francois 
Raymond, Charles and Philippe Leroy, Joseph Brassard, 



212 FEW SYMPATHIZE WITH THE FRENCH. 

Pierre Guediy (half-bred) and Louis Hdbert, former 
servant to Captain Handfield. Some were condemned ; 
others were released, their explanations having been 
judged satisfactory. 

The wonder is, not that twenty persons thus lent as- 
sistance to the enemy, but rather that there were not 
more, as this war lasted four years, and the province 
was invaded so many times. There must necessarily 
have been officious persons giving information to one 
side or the other. To suppose the contrary would be to 
be totally ignorant of human nature. The French re- 
ports show us that there often came to them soldiers 
who had escaped from the Annapolis garrison. These 
deserters informed them of the situation of the English. 
Such isolated facts belong to all times and places, and 
no unfavorable conclusion can reasonably be drawn 
therefrom. 

It is useless to insist on this point ; the fact remains 
established, that the Acadians, in this juncture, the 
most difficult in their history, superabundantly proved 
the great esteem in which they held their oath of 
fidelity. "Their plea with the French who pressed 
them to take up arms, was their oath," said Mascarene. 
Besides, these facts are not disputed, except by Park- 
man who dissents only by implication, by making use 
of expressions that give quite a different impression. 
This writer, who, in his work " Montcalm and Wolfe," 
devotes only three pages to the account of the events 
that occurred from 1710 to 1749, sums up in three lines 
the events of the war of which we have just sketched 
the most important phases : " This," he says, " restored 
comparative quiet till the war of 1745, when some of the 
Acadians remained neutral, while some took arms 



A PARKMAN DODGE. 213 

against the English, and many others aided the enemy 
with information and supplies." This sentence, appar- 
ently simple and candid, is distinctly insidious and dis- 
honest : latet anguis in herba. It specifies nothing ; but, 
through crafty insinuation, it leaves the reader under 
the impression that about one third of the Acadians re- 
mained neutral, that another third took up arms, and 
that the remaining third aided the enemy in different 
ways. This trick is a great favorite of his ; I could 
quote several examples of it without even going out- 
side this subject. A dodge of this kind might be con- 
sidered, in common parlance, smart ; some people 
might admire it in a lawyer or a politician driven into 
a corner ; but there is question here of history, the mas- 
ter quality of which is impartiality. However, no 
Acadian, so far as 1 know, was ever accused of having 
taken up arms during this war. 

In presence of this fidelity, preserved in spite of all 
sorts of seductions and threats, what becomes of Park- 
man's accusation that " the influence of the priests was 
always directed to alienating the Acadians from their 
allegiance ? " an accusation which he repeats in every 
key and in the most positive terms. If the people re- 
mained faithful, then the priests had not the influence 
which he attributes to them, when he tells us that the 
Acadians had no will of their own, that they were the 
docile instruments of these priests. Either these priests, 
having the great influence which Parkman attributes to 
them, exercised it in instilling fidelity to the oath, or 
the Acadians had the firmness and independence neces- 
sary to resist them. Surely, the Acadians needed a 
strong dose of firmness to resist the solicitations and 
threats of the French, especially if, as Parkman avers, 



214 ACADIAN STUBBORNESS. 

they had likewise to resist those of their priests, pressing 
them in the same direction. 

Parkman, in order to prove brilliantly his theory of 
the debilitating action of the clergy, had to suppose, 
firstly, a great influence of this clergy, secondly, a con- 
tinual exercise of this influence, and, in order to draw 
conclusions from his theory, true in itself, if taken in 
the abstract, false or exaggerated in the concrete reality, 
he had to infer that the Acadians had lost all initiative, 
all will, all energy ; in a word, to make of them, as lie 
does, men who could hardly stand up alone. That was 
giving free rein to his fancy, and if the conclusions do 
logically follow from the premises, these latter rested only 
on one crutch, starts pede in uno. 

Although I sometimes pass judgment on the character 
of individuals, I have no inclination to do so in the case 
of a nation; it is so easy, in such matters, to be too abso- 
lute. However, I will venture one such judgment on 
the Acadians, and it will bear on a defect in their char- 
acter, and one directly opposed to what Parkman blames 
in them, namely: "that they were weak of purpose. " 
The most characteristic fault of the Acadians is to be 
extremely headstrong. Even to this day, in the pro- 
vince of Quebec, when people wish to express in a strik- 
ing phrase any one's obstinacy, they say: "He has the 
head of an Acadian," which is tantamount to saying : 
" He has the stubbornness of a mule." Firmness is a 
beautiful quality; but stubbornness, which is its first 
cousin, is a grave defect, and it is the besetting sin of 
the Acadians. But Parkman, who beats the air at 
random, without seeing anything else than his theory, 
has, as might have been expected, hit upon the opposite 
defect. Men rarely make a bull's eye when they fire 



MISTAKE IN FRENCH POLICY. 215 

with their eyes shut. Was this defect acquired by the 
Acadians in their struggles on the question of the oath, 
or was it in them before that ? I know not. If Park- 
man, instead of theorizing in a vacuum, had made a 
more careful study of their history, he would have 
become convinced of this fact, which is too evident to 
escape observation. 

The efforts of the French to engage the Acadians 
to violate their oath of fidelity, merit, in all respects, 
severe condemnation, and these efforts were continual 
from the beginning of this war until the taking of Beau- 
sejour by the English. True, with the help of the 
Acadians, Annapolis would have been taken ; but the 
definitive conquest of Acadia would not have been 
thereby decided. Even had the taking of Annapolis 
meant the conquest of Acadia, the French were none 
the less in honor bound not to urge the Acadians to 
swerve from duty, and not thus to expose them to the 
direst calamities. Their lot, till then, had been as favor- 
able as they could have hoped it to be under a military 
administration, with the intense prejudices that then 
prevailed. France, for a whole century, had done 
nothing to people Acadia and to make of it a self-pro- 
tecting province ; she had done nothing to preserve and 
support it in the moment of danger. If, at the eleventh 
hour, she wished to repair the errors of her past, she 
must first reconquer the country with her own troops, 
and then protect her conquest effectually. 

I am convinced that the conduct of France towards 
the Acadians during this war caused her to lose their 
sympathy, which she had been able to retain up till that 
time. If England, or rather her representatives, had 
understood the Acadian character, if they had trusted 



216 MISTAKE IN FRENCH POLICY. 

them and made the most of their faithfulness, we should 
not have to deplore the misfortunes that ensued. At 
any rate, these incessant attempts to seduce them, far 
from being prejudicial to them, should have been an 
additional proof of their fidelity, a certain pledge for the 
future. At the same time, their conduct, interpreted 
with kindliness, should have become for the English 
authorities an earnest of lasting friendship and practical 
gratitude ; for, as Mascarene said, " without the neu- 
trality of the Acadians, the province would have been 
lost ; " it would likewise have been lost, if they had 
emigrated to the French possessions of Cape Breton, for 
then they would have been soldiers of France in the 
war. But gratitude is a rara avis. 



PROSELYTIZING SCHEME. 217 



CHAPTER XII. 

Other events of the war (1744-1748) — Iniquitous projects of Shirley 
against the Acadians — Their alarms — Letter of Shirley repudi- 
ating the supposed projects — It is not judged satisfactory — 
Shirley procures the authorization of the Secretary of State and 
issues a proclamation to the Acadians — His correspondence 
with the Duke of Newcastle — Proclamations of the French com- 
mander to the Acadians — Firmness of the Acadians. 

Other circumstances add a new and immense weight 
to the fidelity of the Acadians in this war. If Mascarene 
had not been obliged to endure the meddlesomeness of 
Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, there would prob- 
ably not have been a single exception to the strictest 
fidelity. Mascarene, by his conduct, admirable in every 
respect, had gained the esteem and confidence of the 
Acadians to an almost incredible degree. They came to 
him as to a friend, as to a father. Whenever any diffi- 
culty arose respecting the extent of their obligations, 
they came to submit it to his decision, and his reply was 
invariably accepted without a murmur. The documents 
in hand offer several examples of this, among others the 
following : Some English officers obliged some Aca- 
dians to serve as guides and pilots against the French. 
Interpreting these orders as contrary to their neutrality, 
they addressed a petition to Mascarene, entreating him 
not to oblige them to such service. He entered into 
long arguments with their delegates to show them that 
their oath did not exempt them from this service. 



218 PKOSELYTIZIKG SCHEME. 

Without hesitation they withdrew their petition, and 
afterwards no longer objected to any assistance that did 
not imply the bearing of arms. 

Shirley, who was not animated with the same spirit, 
came near ruining everything, and, once more, Mas- 
carene saved the situation. Toward the beginning of 
the war, Shirley, somewhat through distrust for the 
fidelity of the Acadians, but much more through 
fanaticism and contempt of right and liberty, had 
proposed a project in regard to them which Murdoch 
thus epitomizes : " He proposes to intersperse Protestant 
settlements among the Acadians, taking part of the 
marshlands from them for the new settlers. . . .he recom- 
mends granting small privileges and immunities for the en- 
couragement of such as should come over to the Protes- 
tant communion and send their children to learn 
English." 

This upright historian cannot help condemning the 
project : " This suggestion of offering worldly advantages 
in exchange of profession," says he, " can hardly be com- 
mended in our days." 

This plan included a further injustice, that of 
arbitrarily depriving the Acadians of the best part of 
their lands, of that which had entailed the most labor, 
the marshes. Would his suggestions have been 
adopted ? Certainly, if Shirley had been master of the 
situation ; but, as we shall see elsewhere, the authorities 
in England were far from taking the same view. The 
Duke of Newcastle may have been a great briber, he 
may not have known, as Parkman says, where Acadia 
was situated on the map ; but, at least, he had respect 
for certain things. Shirley himself may have been very 
sagacious ; but he was laboring under a strange delu- 



SHIRLEY A TRIMMER. 219 

sion when he imagined that, with such projects, he could 
retain the Acadians in the province. 

This design became known to the Acadians in the 
second year of the war, 1745, but was falsely represented 
to them as a plan for their expulsion. They were 
greatly alarmed thereat. The French took every 
advantage of this rumor to increase this alarm and to 
overcome the resistance they were meeting with. They 
argued that such arbitrary acts released them from their 
oath of fidelity ; that sooner or later they would be 
wholly deprived of the free exercise of their religion, of 
their priests and their language ; that their properties 
would be confiscated, etc., etc. In this perplexity 
Acadian deputies from all parts of the province went 
to consult Mascarene. He combated their apprehen- 
sion, and promised to procure a speedy denial from 
Shirley, and assurances guaranteeing anew the free 
exercise of their religion, etc. 

Shirley clung tenaciously to his project, for, at this 
very time, August 15, 1746, he wrote to the Duke of 
Newcastle : . . . " By which means, and removing the 
Romish priests out of the Province, and introducing Pro- 
testant English schools and French Protestant ministers 
and due encouragement given to such of the Acadians as 
shall conform to the Protestant religion, and send their 
children to English schools, in the next generation they 
would in a great measure become true Protestant sub- 
jects." 

When the Acadians had resisted all seductions and 
saved the province by their neutrality and their labor in 
repairing the fort, at that very time did Shirley renew 
his infamous project. 

September 16th, four weeks after the above letter, 



220 LETTER TO THE DUKE. 

Shirley, as representative of His Majesty, addressed to 
the Acadians a letter in which he affirmed : " That the 
apprehensions of being removed were groundless, and 
that they might be assured that he would use his best 
endeavors to obtain the continuance of the Royal favor 
and protection." 

Three days later, September 19th, Shirley made the 
Duke of Newcastle acquainted with the situation. As we 
have seen, Shirley's plan was not expulsion, but it was 
none the better for that ; it was equivalent to an expul- 
sion and more odious than a mere order to depart, which 
would have left the Acadians free to go where they 
liked. It was therefore easy for him to repudiate a 
project, which, literally, he had not formed, and to re- 
main vague on other matters : but the Acadians were not 
to be taken in by assurances that were so little defined 
and so unauthorized. 

November 21st, Shirley wrote to the Duke of New- 
castle to inform him that his letter to the Acadians had 
not had the effect of quieting their fears : 

" They are still alarmed at the rumor of the design to remove 
them. New assurances should be given by His Majesty at once ; 
if this was done it would have a great tendency to remove their 
present apprehensions of being sent off. . . . These measures, to- 
gether with the introducing of French protestant ministers and 
English schools, and some synall encouragements by privileges to 
such as should conform to the Protestant religion ; the disallowance 
of the public exercise of the Romish religion, at least after a short 
term of years, and forbidding Romish priests under severe penal- 
ties to come into the country 

"Just as I had finished the last parapraph, a letter from Ad- 
miral Knowles was delivered to me in which he informs me that 
he has given his opinion to Your Grace, that it will be necessary 
to drive all the Acadians out of Acadia. . . I am of a contrary 
opinion. . . It seems very difficidt to drive all the Acadians out of 



LETTER TO THE DUKE. 221 

Acadia. This ivould strengthen the French considerably, and 
would make the reclaiming of the Indians impracticable. . . . But, 
after their having remained so long in the country upon the foot- 
ing of British subjects, under the sanction of the treaty of Utrecht, 
and making improvements on their lands for one or two genera- 
tions, and being grown up into such a number of families, to drive 
them all off without further enquiry seems to be liable to many ob- 
jections. Among others, it may be doubted whether under the 
circumstances of these people it would clearly appear to be a just 

usage of them The exemption of not bearing arms upon 

any account given to them by Governor Philipps, on their consent- 
ing to take an oath of allegiance, whether it was done by him with 
or without authority, it may perhaps be deemed too rigorous a 
punishment that would envolve the innocent with the guilty in the 
loss of their estates and the expulsion out of the country ; it is not 
improbable but that there may be many among them who would 
even prefer His Majesty's Government to a French one, and have 
done nothing to deserve such fate. Some allowance may likewise 
be made for their bad situation between Canadians, Indians and 
English, the ravages of all which they have felt by turns in the 
course of the war ; during which they seem to have been continu- 
ally placed between two fires, the force and menaces of the Cana- 
dians and Indians plundering them of whatever they wanted and 
deterring them in the strongest manner from having any commu- 
nication with His Majesty's garrison on the one hand, and the re- 
sentment of the garrison for their withholding their intelligence 
and supplies on the other, though at the same time it was not in a 
condition to protect them from the enemy. Wherefore, it seems a 
matter worthy of your Grace's consideration whether, under such 
doubtful circumstances, the driving all the Acadians off the coun- 
try, thereby greatly strengthening the enemy, is more eligible than 
treating them as subjects." 

Such is the man whom Parkman sets on a pedestal 
for the admiration of his fellow-citizens. True, he was 
" determined," " energetic," " resolute," and these qual- 
ities appear to be those which Parkman appreciates 
above all others. I am willing to make allowances for 
times and circumstances ; but I refuse to believe that 
this conduct of Shirley's was comformable to the code 



222 A PRECURSOR TO LAWRENCE. 

of honor that then prevailed, how low soever that was ; 
and yet all this vile stuff was written to a duke and 
a secretary of state, and it was the third time he re- 
peated his project, at the very moment when he had just 
assured the Acadians " of his best endeavors to obtain 
the continuance of the Royal favor and protection ; " 
when, as he himself said, " they were under the sanction 
of a treaty," and, when, as Mascarene said, " they had 
in no ways joined the enemy." 

Need we be astonished, after this, that a man equally 
" firm and resolute," but morally much inferior to Shir- 
le}', deported the Acadians without more reason than 
Shirley would have had at this time ? Shirley, however, 
keeps within bounds ; feelings of honor stop him some- 
where ; the limit is not very high, it is even very low ; 
but we can guess at a vague boundary line which he 
prefers not to overleap. This vague line is the treaty, 
that oath with a restriction, the difficult position of the 
Acadians, their resistance to the seductions and threats 
of the enemy. On second thoughts, he asks himself 
whether the Acadians should be blamed for, some- 
times, not giving information to the government, when 
they were prevented from doing so by terrible threats, 
and when this government was unable to protect them. 

These objections would hardly be obstacles, " but the 
departure of the Acadians tvould greatly strengthen the 
enemy and would make the reclaiming of the Indians im- 
practicable" This is the serious point. At bottom, the 
politic aspect alone interests him, and, for this reason, 
" it is more eligible to consider them as subjects." 

Between Shirley and Admiral Knowles who left such 
a poor reputation at Boston and elsewhere, there is at 
least this difference that the former is amenable to 



NEWCASTLE TO THE RESCUE. 223 

diplomatic reasons, while the latter stops at nothing. 
But, had Shirley's diplomacy been anything more than 
skilful wire-pulling, he must have understood that not 
an Acadian would remain in the country, if they were 
deprived of their religion. It is truly remarkable that 
not one of these governors, except Mascarene and Hop- 
son, realized this, though the proofs of it stared them in 
the face. Evidently they judged others by their own 
feelings. 

Let us pass to the reply of the Duke of Newcastle on 
May 30th following (1747) : 

"As you and Mr. Warren have represented that an opinion 
prevailed amongst the Acadians, that it was intended to remove 
them from their settlements and habitations in the Province ; and 
as that report may probably have been artfully spread amongst 
them in order to induce them to withdraw themselves from their 
allegiance to His Majesty and to take part with the enemy ; His 
Majesty thinks it necessary that proper measures should be taken 
to remove any such ill-grounded suggestions ; and, for that pur- 
pose, it is the King's pleasure, that you should declare in some 
public and authentic manner to His Majesty's subjects, the Aca- 
dians of that Province, that there is not the least foundation for 
any apprehension of that nature ; on tlxe contrary, it is His Maj- 
esty's resolution to protect and maintain all such of them as shall 
continue in their duty and allegiance to His Majesty, in the quiet 
and peaceable possession of their respective habitations, and that 
they shall continue to enjoy the free exercise of their religion." 

Here again is a striking instance of the immense 
superiority of the Home authorities on the score of justice 
and honor. The provincial government systematically 
misstates all the facts so as to deceive the Home Govern- 
ment; and yet the latter never swerves, to any great 
extent, from its righteous line of conduct. When Shirley 
has done all he could to get his infamous project ap- 



224 SHIRLEY GARBLES AND EXPLAINS. 

proved, the answer comes back that the Acadians should 
be promised "the free exercise of their religion." 

What is Shirley going to do? We shall see. But 
first, I shall produce an extract from another of Shirley's 
letters to the Duke of Newcastle, addressed to him a few 
days before the receipt of the preceding one. On July 
8th he represented to him that the French had just left 
Grand Pre* to retire to Beaubassin ; that they ought to 
be dislodged, that English-American colonists ought to 
be settled there in place of the Acadians of this district, 
" and these Acadians transplanted in New England, and 
distributed among the four governments there" 

This shows I was quite right in saying that Shirley's 
scruples were of a very low order, almost infinitesimal. 
He was much put out by the orders of the Duke of 
Newcastle, so much so that, for a long time, he did 
nothing at all. It was important for the safety of the 
province to allay as soon as possible the apprehensions of 
the Acadians, lest they should weary of waiting and 
allow themselves at length to be seduced and convinced 
by the French. But Shirley persisted so strongly in 
his project of Protestantizing the Acadians, that he did 
nothing for several months, and, when he made up his 
mind to act, he simply suppressed that part of the Duke 
of Newcastle's letter which ordered him to promise them 
the full exercise of their religion. 

He explained his conduct to the Duke on Oct. 28th, 
when a whole year had elapsed since he had promised 
the Acadians to procure from the King himself the 
promises they solicited. In this letter of Oct. 28th, 
1747, he informs His Grace that he has just drawn up a 
proclamation conformable to his letter of the preceding 
30th of May ; but that he has taken upon himself to 






SHIRLEY GARBLES AND EXPLAINS. 225 

omit the clause concerning the free exercise of their 
religion : 

" Because the treaty of Utrecht does not seem to lay His Majesty 
under an obligation to allow the Acadians the exercise of the 

Roman Catholic religion.* And, as His Majesty is as yet 

under no promise to do it, I should hope that methods might be 
found for weakening the ties of consanguinity and religion. . . 
which may possibly be cut off or at least obstructed by His Majesty 
making a promise to continue the Acadians in the free exercise 
of their religion. . . Therefore, I have taken the liberty to suspend 
promising them the free exercise of the Romish religion, though 
it is mentioned in your Grace's letter to have been part of what 
was to be included in His Majesty's intended Proclamation, till I 
could transmit my sentiments to your Grace, and I should have 
His Majesty's farther directions upon it ; and have in the mean- 
time made a declaration of such points as seemed necessary to be 
ascertained to the Acadians for quieting their minds and would 
not admit delay" 

What an accumulation of frauds from Nicholson to 
Lawrence ! Pelion on Ossa. Shirley would, indeed, 
have included in his proclamation the promise of the 
free exercise of their religion, but that promise, emanat- 
ing from His Majesty, might " possibly " have been 
44 an obstruction." A trifle, a mere nothing which could 
not embarrass a statesman ! A simple question of not 
pledging imprudently the name of His Majesty without 
absolute necessity, in order to be more at liberty to seek 
some means of weakening this senseless attachment they 
have for their religion ! 

Mascarene communicated to the Acadians Shirley's 



* By the treaty of Utrecht : " The Acadians are to enjoy the free exercise 
of their religion according to the usage of the Church of Rome, as far as 
the laws of Great Britain do allow the same." In 1730 the Acadians agreed 
to take the oath only because this privilege was more explicitly granted 
to them anew by Philipps. 

15 



226 MASCARENE THE COMFORTER. 

proclamation on Oct. 21st, 1747. To their deputies he 
wrote : 

" You have in possession His Excellency William Shirley's Pro- 
clamation, whereby you may be made easy in that respect, you are 
sensible of the promise I made to you, the effects of which you 
have already felt, that I would protect you so long as by your con- 
duct and fidelity to the crown of Great Britain you would enable 
me to do so, which promise I do again repeat to you." 

I do not believe the Acadians were fully satisfied 
with Shirley's proclamation. The tenor of Mascarene's 
letter seems to indicate that he was anxious about it, 
and that, knowing the confidence he inspired them 
with, he relied quite as much on his own personal assur- 
ance, to dispel their doubts, as on Shirley's proclama- 
tion. They had been left more than a year under an 
impression that was but too well grounded. During all 
this time, in order to maintain their fidelity to the oath, 
they had resisted the arguments, cajoleries and threats 
of the French ; and if, by exception, some assisted the 
enemy, these exceptions were so rare that, taking all in 
all, they count for nothing ; and it may be reasonably 
supposed that these exceptions would not have existed, 
if the projects formed against them had not come to 
their knowledge. 

In all this I fail to see the u weakness of purpose n 
with which Parkman entertains us ; it is rather a firm- 
ness that resembles obstinacy. The sequel will show 
how far this firmness went. Here I shall lay aside the 
documents I possess in order to quote Parkman him- 
self, who, to my surprise, sums them up faithfully 
enough in his new work " Half a Century's Conflict : " 

" De Ramesay, who was at Grand Pre, on learning the approach 






FIGHT AT GRAND PEL. 227 

of an English force, had tried to persuade the Acadians that they 
were to be driven from their homes, and that their only hope was 
in joining with him to meet force by force, but they trusted 
Shirley's recent assurance of protection, and replied that they 
would not break their oath of fidelity to King George. On this, 
de Ramesay retreated to his old station at Beaubassin, and Noble 
and his men occupied Grand Pre without opposition."* 

A few months later, in February, 1747, took place the 
memorable fight at Grand Pre*, which we have already 
mentioned. Surprised during the night by the French 
under the command of Coulon de Villiers, who had 
taken advantage of the darkness and a blinding snow- 
storm, the English troops occupying this new post were 
obliged to capitulate after losing, according to French 
reports, a hundred and forty officers and soldiers killed, 
among whom were Colonel Noble, his brother, Lieu- 
tenants Lechmere, Jones and Pickering, and fifty-four 
taken prisoners, among whom was Edward Howe, com- 
missary of the English troops in Acadia. f Not long 
before, when some Acadians had warned Colonel Noble 
that the French were planning an assault on Grand Pre, 
they were laughed at : " They, the people of Mines," 
says Murdoch, " had assured the English that the French 
would come and attack them, but the English were in- 
credulous, relying on the severity of the winter." J 

The French then found themselves masters of Grand 
Pre*, after a battle in which they had defeated and driven 

* Parkman must be here alluding only to the first letter of Shirley to the 
Acadians and not to his proclamation, since Grand Pre was occupied by 
Col. Noble in the autumn of 1746, and the proclamation is dated Oct. 21st. 
1747. 

t The French-Canadian nobility were numerously represented at this 
combat: " Coulon de Villiers, La Come de St. Luc, de Beaujeu, de Lery, de 
Gaspe, de Lotbiniere, de Ligneris, de Repentigny, de Rigauville, de Lan- 
gis, de Boish6bert, de Lusignan, de la Colombiere, de Bailleul ; " were 
present also MM. Marin, Mercier, Major. 

% Cf. Eannay, Hist, of Acadia, p. 349. 



228 PRESSURE IMMENSE. 

away the English ; after a capitulation in virtue of 
which the conquered had given up the post with all it 
contained, and had pledged themselves to retire to 
Annapolis and not to bear arms for six months. It was, 
properly speaking, a conquest of this part of Acadia. 
The Acadians, who dwelt therein, thus changed mas- 
ters, at least they might have reasonably believed they 
did, and it was possible to find more arguments in favor 
of this view than of the contrary one. De Ramesay 
directly understood the advantage he could derive from 
this situation : he availed himself of it to issue a proc- 
lamation in which he declared that, by this battle, 
France had reconquered this part of Acadia ; that the 
Acadians had thereby become once more French sub- 
jects, and that therefore they owed submission and 
fidelity to the French Government ; that they should no 
longer entertain any relations with the English under 
severe penalties. 

To this proclamation the Acadians replied by a letter 
of which we have only the conclusion : 

" Thus, sir, we beg of you to regard our good will and at the 
same time our powerlessness, poor people as we are, burdened, 
most of us with large families, without succor if obliged to evacu- 
ate the country, a disaster that daily threatens us, that keeps us in 
continual fear, for we see ourselves in proximity to those who 
have been our rulers for such a great number of years." 

Meanwhile, they wrote to Mascarene, explaining their 
situation and communicating to him a copy of de 
Ramesay's proclamation. 

Not content with the result of his proclamation, de 
Ramesay applied to the Governor of Canada to obtain 
from him orders confirming his own. Upon receiving a 



BUT UNAVAILING. 229 

reply, he addressed a new proclamation to the Acadiasn, 
ordering them in the name of the King of France to 
take up arms against the English, and adding an extract 
of a letter of the Governor of Canada, which was as 
follows : 

" We consider ourselves as masters of the districts of Beaubas- 
sin and Mines, since we have driven off the English. Therefore, 
there is no difficulty in forcing the Acadians of these parts to 
take arms for us ; to which end we declare to them, that they are 
discharged from the oath that they formerly took to the English, 
by which they are bound no longer, as had been decided by the 
authorities of Canada and Monseigneur our bishop." 

The pressure, it must be admitted, was immense. It 
was Ramesay's second proclamation, and this time, 
besides his personal opinion on the lawfulness of his 
pretensions, he produced that of the Governor of Canada 
and even that of the Bishop of Quebec. Besides, every- 
thing seemed to show that the conquest and capitulation 
did indeed release the Acadians from their oath of 
fealty. 

Nothing of all this seems to have had any effect on 
the Acadians. On June 8th following, Shirley wrote 
to the Duke of Newcastle : 

" I have nothing to add to my letters, which I have lately trans- 
mitted to Your Grace, except that Mr. de Ramesay is still at 
Beaubassin with his party in expectation of a reinforcement from 
Canada. . . and that he has not thought fit to venture again to 
Mines, but insists in his messages to the Acadians there, that they 
should look upon themselves as subjects to the King of France, 
since the New England troops were obliged to retire out of their 
District by capitulation, but that this has had no effect upon the 
Acadians, the reinforcement which I sent there afterwards having 
taken repossession of Mines, . . . and the deputies having there- 
upon renewed their oath of fidelity to His Majesty at Annapolis." 



230 BUT UNAVAILING. 

It is not easy to see in all of this any sign that the 
Acadians were " weak of purpose," and such slaves to 
the influence of the clergy, since they resisted even the 
opinion of a bishop, if it be true that this opinion was 
not invented or misapplied. Subsequent events will 
abundantly prove that their firmness or even their 
obstinacy was the same up to the deportation. 

What more, then, was wanted to satisfy the Govern- 
ment and deserve its gratitude ? Mascarene perfectly 
understood that the safety of the province was due to 
the firm attitude of the Acadians, and, had he been left 
to himself, I doubt not they would have received from 
him a most equitable treatment ; but Shirley was far 
from allowing himself to be guided by such high 
motives.* 



* Not a single one of the documents cited in this chapter is found in the 
volume of the archives. 



LOUISBURG RESTORED. 231 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle — Cape Breton restored to 
France — The French remain in their positions on the north side 
of the Bay of Fundy — Founding of Halifax, June, 1749 — Proc- 
lamation of the new governor, Edward Cornwallis — Oath with- 
out restriction exacted or departure within three months- 
Refusal of the whole population — Embarrassment of Cornwallis — 
Temporizing — Founding of Beausejour by the French — Their 
efforts to attract the Acadians. 

Peace was concluded in October, 1748, at Aix-la- 
Chapelle. The treaty left the respective situations of 
the two nations as they were before the war. The 
provinces or towns, that were conquered, were restored. 
L'lle Royale (Cape Breton) was given back to France. 

For special reasons this restoration was particularly 
vexing to the Anglo-Americans. To them, indeed, 
belonged the honor of having taken Louisburg, where 
their militia had given proofs of much courage and skill. 
This fortress, which had cost France so much money, 
had been a continual menace to the English posses- 
sions ; the news of its fall had been hailed with great 
rejoicings, and its restitution left bitter regrets. 

Nearly forty years had elapsed since the treaty of 
Utrecht, which had stipulated that France was to cede 
Acadia, but without otherwise specifying what consti- 
tuted Acadia. Its frontiers, as well as those of the 
whole of Canada, were to be determined by commis- 
sioners to be appointed for this purpose. Nothing had 



232 WHAT WAS ACADIA? 

yet been regulated at the time of the treaty of Aix- 
la-Chapelle, nor did this treaty decide the question. 

The neglect to settle the frontier difficulty was to 
give rise to many other difficulties, and eventually to 
inflict on France, not only humiliation, but a blow the 
consequences of which were the most disastrous it had 
ever experienced. Until now France and England 
seemed to struggle with equal chances of success for 
the empire of the sea ; Spain had been left in the lurch. 
The Seven Years' War was about to decide that Eng- 
land should definitively occupy the first place ; that 
its language, civilization, and institutions should spread 
over all colonizable countries, all the strategic points 
of the Old and New worlds ; that its industry and its 
commerce should assume an immense development and 
bring it great wealth ; that its wares and its money, 
scattered broadcast over the surface of the globe, should 
secure for it a preponderating influence in the council 
of nations. 

The English claimed that Acadia ought to comprise 
all New Brunswick, besides the peninsula ; while the 
French, on the other hand, claimed all the country to 
the north of the Bay of Fundy and even the east coast 
of the peninsula ; nor were reasons wanting to support 
each of these alleged rights, since these rights were 
based on undefined or contradictory charters granted 
more than a century before. In each case and for 
similar reasons the conflicting parties asked for more 
than they knew they had a right to or than they hoped 
to obtain. 

Meanwhile, Captain Marin, after the treaty of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, occupied the north coast of the Bay of Fundy, 
that is, all the country that is now New Brunswick, 






WHAT WAS ACADIA? 233 

leaving to the English, until the decision of the com- 
mission, the present province of Nova Scotia except 
the island of Cape Breton. Marin's territory comprised 
the Acadian settlements of the river St. John, of Chi- 
pody, Memramcook and Peticodiac. Beaubassin was 
situated partly on the French side, partly in the penin- 
sula. 

This state of affairs awakened in the mind of the Eng- 
lish authorities the idea, often expressed by Philipps, 
Mascarene and Shirley, of founding English colonies in 
Nova Scotia. The two first-named suggested the estab- 
lishment of a fort at Beaubassin, and the colonizing of 
the isthmus from the eastern extremity of the Bay of 
Fundy as far as Bay Yerte. Shirley, as we have seen 
elsewhere, proposed moreover to take away from the 
Acadians a part of their lands and to introduce thereon 
colonists from New England, in order the more effect- 
ually to make the Acadians English and bring about their 
conversion to Protestantism. Whatever may have been 
the reason, whether neglect, or the dangers of the situa- 
tion on account of the hostility of the Indians, or 
because these projects implied too great an expenditure 
of money, or because already those colonists of Massa- 
chusetts inspired the imperial government with distrust ; 
at any rate nothing had been effected. 

The first of these projects had become harder to realize 
on account of the great expansion of the Acadian popu- 
lation in these parts ; on the other hand Shirley's pro- 
ject, which implied spoliation and an odious infringe- 
ment of the religious liberty guaranteed by a treaty, 
was not to be encouraged by the English Government, 
always more equitable and humane than the colonial 
authorities. 



234 RAPID INCREASE. 

The Acadian population had increased with surprising 
rapidity. From 175 heads of families who arrived in 
Acadia at different times in the course of a century, a 
little nation had sprung up, which, at the time of the 
cession of the country, counted 2,500 souls, 7,114 in the 
year 1739, and about 12,500 in 1749. Of this number 
nearly 3,500 dwelt north of the present borders of 
Nova Scotia on the territory then occupied by the 
French. 

The position of these latter Acadians was going to be- 
come exceedingly critical and perplexing. Until then, 
this part of the country had, properly speaking, been 
held neither by France nor by England. The inhabit- 
ants, who occupied it, especially those of River St. 
John, Chipody, Memramcook and Peticodiac, had 
governed themselves, or rather lived peacefully without 
government, without control, without intervention. 
As France had ceded Acadia, and as they were the sons 
of the Acadians established in the peninsula, they made 
no difficulty in acknowledging themselves English sub- 
jects, and in 1730 they took the oath of fealty. 

The encroachments of France, before the decision of 
the commission appointed to fix the limits of Acadia, 
determined England to found an English colony and a 
fortified post that might serve as a counterpoise to 
Louisburg. Chibucto Bay was chosen, and the found- 
ing of Halifax decided in March, 1749. Fourteen 
ships, bearing 2,756 persons with all the necessary pro- 
visions and a complete civil organization, comprising an 
administrative council, magistrates, a schoolmaster, a 
minister, as well as merchants, artisans, and clerks, set 
sail on May 14th, and entered Chibucto harbor June 
27th following-. Edward Cornwallis was the new 



STRATEGIC VALUE OF HALIFAX. 235 

governor. Halifax was founded. The place was most 
judiciously chosen. The French had made the mistake 
of overlooking the advantages of this harbor and of pre- 
ferring Louisburg to it. The English were perhaps 
wrong in delaying so long to occupy it. Acadia had 
been forty years in their possession, and yet, in 1748, 
there were not a dozen English colonists in the whole 
province. The consequence was that the Annapolis 
garrison would not have been able to subsist without the 
Acadians, and this dependence on them had been partly 
the cause of all the efforts and frauds of the governors 
to retain, against their will, a population which had for 
a long time wanted to withdraw at any cost. 

The much-delayed foundation of Halifax repaired to 
a certain extent this error, which had no grievous con- 
sequences for England, thanks to the mild and peaceful 
manners of the Acadians ; but, later on, it enabled an 
unfeeling and conscienceless governor to crush this little 
nation and inflict on it woes, the remembrance of which, 
after more than a century, still fills with anguish the de- 
scendants of those who were his victims. 

If, upon the whole, regard being had to the times, the 
Acadians had been hitherto governed with gentleness, 
they met with different treatment after the foundation of 
Halifax ; which proves that this gentleness originated in 
the weakness of the rulers and the submissive spirit of the 
governed, in the fear of losing a population whose as- 
sistance was indispensable. How could they have been 
governed harshly, when there were only from a hun- 
dred to a hundred and fifty soldiers at Annapolis, 
when the mass of the population was far distant from the 
only fortified place in the whole country ? Such a state 
of things would have been impossible with any other 



236 STRATEGIC VALUE OF HALIFAX. 

but a peaceable and submissive people. Orders may 
sometimes have been executed reluctantly or slowly ; 
but instances of this kind are so insignificant that thej r 
would not deserve to be mentioned, were they not the 
only instances on record, and had not the deportation 
invested them with a certain interest. Even when, 
under Armstrong's administration, several priests were 
arrested, and ill-used, and the churches closed, we do 
not hear of any threat or act of resistance from the Aca- 
dians. We shall see the same self-restraint later on, 
despite provocations and an ever-increasing oppression, 
all of which was seemingly designed to provoke a pre- 
text for deporting them. 

As may be supposed, this new town suddenly arising 
must have greatly exercised the Acadian centres. An 
event of this importance could not fail to entail upon 
them very serious proximate or remote consequences ; 
they must have understood its bearings and commented 
at length upon the new situation. Clearly this was a 
serious enterprise, a colony that would be strongly en- 
couraged and assisted by England. What boded it for 
them ? Would the actual state of affairs be changed ? 
Would their happiness be troubled thereby, the free 
exercise of their religion restricted, or entirely taken 
away from them ? Had they not reason to fear that a 
part of their lands would be confiscated ? It may well 
be supposed that these questions and others of like 
nature were so many problems stated and discussed at 
the fireside in evening chats. In this review of pos- 
sibilities it was very likely the pessimistic opinions 
that generally prevailed. 

The fleet, as I have said, had entered Chibucto harbor 
June 27, 1749. A few days later, the Acadians of 






CORNWALLIS ANSWERS A DEPUTATION. 237 

River Canard, Grand Pre and Pigiguit, sent three dep- 
uties to the new governor to present him in their name 
their respects and their homage. 

Jean Melangon, Claude LeBlanc and Philippe Melan- 
gon were the three deputies admitted to the presence of 
the Governor. They were asked if they had any petition 
to present from the Acadians of their district ; they re- 
plied that they had come simply to offer their respects 
to His Excellency and to know if their condition would 
remain the same as before, especially with regard to the 
free exercise of their religion. His Excellency, who 
had just drawn up a proclamation enjoining upon the 
Acadians to take the oath without restriction, communi- 
cated it to them with the order to publish it, to post it 
up in all public places, to return within fifteen days 
with the other deputies, and to give an account of the 
resolutions of the inhabitants of their respective districts. 

On July 29th, the date fixed for their return, despite 
the long distances they had to travel, the Acadian depu- 
ties of the whole province, including those residing 
north of the Bay of Fundy, had reached Halifax, namely : 

Alexandre Hubert, ) * y 

Joseph Dugas, j ^ 

Claude Le Blanc, ) Grand Pre. 

Jean Melangon, ) Rividre aux Canards. 

Baptiste Gaillard, / p- ,• - f 

Pierre Landry, j & ® 

Pierre Gautereau, — Cobe'quid. 

Pierre Doucet, ) -n -, . 
■p • t> > Beaubassm. 

.brangois Bourg, ) 

Alexandre Brassard, — Chipody. 

" They were called in before the Council and asked what reso- 
lutions the inhabitants had taken in consequence of His Majesty's 
declarations. 



238 BESPECTFUL PROTEST. 

" Jean Melancon delivered to His Excellency a letter wherein, he 
said, was contained their answer, which letter, being read, the 
Council was of opinion that with regard to that part of their letter 
demanding an exemption from bearing arms, it was the opinion 
of the Council that no exception should be granted them, but that 
they should be told peremptorily that they must take the oath as 
offered them. That His Excellency will send persons as soon as 
possible to administer the oath, and that all such as are willing to 
continue in the possession of their lands, must appearand take the 
oath before the 26th of October, which will be the last day allowed 
them. 

"This declaration being read to them, they asked whether, if 
they had a mind to evacuate the country they would have leave to 
sell their lands and effects. His Excellency answered, that, by 
the Treaty of Utrecht, there was one year allowed them, wherein 
they might have sold their effects, but that at the present time, 
those that should choose to retire could not be allowed to sell or 
carry off anything. 

"The deputies beg leave to return to their Departments and 
consult with the inhabitants. Upon which they were warned, 
that, whoever should not have taken the oath before the 26th of 
October, should forfeit all their possessions and rights in this 
Province. 

" They then asked leave to go to the french governor and see 
what condition might be offered them. His Excellency's order 
was, that whoever should leave this Province without taking the 
oath should immediately forfeit all their rights. 

" The secretary was ordered to write all the priests to repair 
hither." 

A proclamation conformable to the reply of the 
governor was left in the hands of the deputies to be 
published in their respective districts. A few weeks 
later the same deputies returned, bearing a letter to the 
governor, signed by a thousand persons, in which they 
most courteously expressed their views : 

"We are very contrite, sir, when we consider the privilege* 
which were granted to us by General Philipps, after we had taken 
the oath of allegiance to His Majesty. . . 



RESPECTFUL PROTEST. 239 

" Two years ago, His Majesty was pleased to grant us the enjoy- 
ment of our property, etc. , etc. We have received all these promises 
as coming from His Majesty ; we have encouragingly relied upon 
them and have rendered service to the Government, never having 
had the wish to violate our oath. We believe, Your Excellency, 
that if His Majesty had been informed of our conduct towards his 
Government, he would not propose to us an oath which, if taken, 
would at any moment expose our lives to great peril from the sav- 
age nations, who have reproached us in a strange manner, as to 
the oath we have taken to His Majesty. This one, binding us still 
more strictly, we should assuredly become the victims of their 
barbarous cruelty." 

1 ' The inhabitants in general, sir, have resolved not to take the 
oath which your Excellency require of us ; but, if your Excellency 
will grant us our old oath, which was given to Governor Philipps, 
with an exemption from taking up arms, we will accept it. 

"But if Your Excellency is not disposed to grant us what we 
take the liberty of asking, we are resolved every one of us to leave 
the country. 

"We take the liberty, sir, to beg Your Excellency whether or 
not His Majesty has annulled the oath given to us by General 
Philipps. 

" Thereupon, we hope, sir, that you will take notice of our hum- 
ble supplications, and that Your Excellency will allow yourself 
to be moved by our miseries, and we, on our part, we will exert 
ourselves to the utmost in praying to God for the preservation of 
your person." 

Cornwallis had previously told them that they could 
quit the country, but that they should take nothing 
away with them. He had committed the same blunder 
as his predecessors. He had thought that these men 
were too much attached to their goods to resign them- 
selves to the utter abandonment of the fruit of their 
patient labor. Like his predecessors, he was deceived. 
Perhaps he did not yet see his mistake clearly ; but he 
was soon to be convinced of it. 

His reply was, as the preceding ones had been, harsh 
and haughty : 



240 CORNWALLIS WAXES WROTH. 

"You do nothing but repeat the same story without the least 
change ; you want to be subjects on such or such conditions. That 
cannot be. All those who chose to remain after the Treaty of 
Utrecht have become British subjects and could not have imposed 
conditions to their becoming such. You have always refused to 
take this oath without an unexpressed reservation ; I tell you that 
Governor Philipps who granted you such reservation did not do his 
duty. It is only out of pity to your inexperience that we con- 
descend to reason with you, otherwise the question would not be 
reasoning but commanding and being obeyed." 

Thus did he dismiss them with these harsh words, 
without reiterating or even mentioning the orders con- 
tained in his proclamation, and without so much as 
communicating to them a written answer, which they 
awaited in order to transmit it to the inhabitants. 

His letter to the Lords of Trade, five days later, 
shows us clearly enough the state of his mind and the 
current of his thoughts : 

" The Acadian deputies have been with us this week. They 
came, as they said, with their final answer. Your Lordships will 
see from the enclosed copy, that they are, or say they are, resolved 
to retire, rather than take the oath of Allegiance. As I am sure 
they will not leave tlieir habitations this season, when the letter 
was read to the Council in their presence, I made them answer 
without changing anything of my former declaration, or saying 
one word about it. My vieiv is to make them as useful as possible 
to His Majesty while they do stay. If, afterwards, they are still 
obstinate, and refuse the oath, I shall receive in the spring His 
Majesty's further instructions from Your Lordships. 

" As they stayed to have copies of my answer in writing. I saw 
some of them in the afternoon by myself, and exhorted them to 
be faithful to His Majesty. . . They went home in good humour 
promising great things." 

Cornwallis seems already to be doubtful of the result. 
Had he known their history and the relations of his 



INJUDICIOUS ARROGANCE. 241 

predecessors with them, he would have immediately 
understood that his haughty manners, his arrogance as 
of a Roman proconsul, must, while alarming them, 
produce an effect just the opposite of what he intended. 
Any humane and tolerably observant man would have 
realized this. He had flattered himself that, by de- 
livering, in a magisterial tone, these subtilties to poor 
ignorant people, he would lord it over them and thus 
stamp out all resistance. This showed great ignorance 
of their character. Besides, it was a very bad begin- 
ning; he was entering upon a line of conduct that 
could bring him only deceptions and humiliations ; he 
was about to traverse all the phases through which 
Armstrong and Philipps had passed, before making up 
his mind to adopt mild and conciliatory measures, and 
then it would be too late. 

Other deputations followed ; memorials were pre- 
sented in which were narrated the facts relating to 
their sojourn in the country and to the oath. They 
recalled the treaty of Utrecht, which gave to all those 
who did not desire to become English subjects the 
right to depart within the space of a year taking with 
them their movable property ; they mentioned the let- 
ter of Queen Anne which enlarged the privileges of 
the treaty. They reminded him that their decision 
had been to quit the country, but that they had been 
always prevented by all sorts of means. " In presence 
of so many obstacles we have," said they, " offered and 
taken several oaths, all of which were based on that 
promise of exemption from service in war ; if we have 
stayed in this country, it has been with this explicit 
reservation, and the finest phrases could not change our 

conviction on that point." " Your oaths are illegal," 
16 



242 HIS HIGH MIGHTINESS. 

said Cornwallis, " and if the preceding governors sanc- 
tioned them by their promises, they delivered to you 
titles that are null and void ; you are here subjects of 
the King of England, even without having taken the 
oath of allegiance ; you have therefore lost all your 
rights, and it is a favor he granted you when he con- 
sented to admit you again to the benefit of his alle- 
giance." 

The Acadians replied that their claims were founded 
on authentic acts, which could not be repudiated or 
distorted by mere words. " Governor Philipps had 
begun by denying our claims; then, after examining 
into them, he recognized our rights and consented to 
grant this exemption from bearing arms; he assured 
us he had full authority therefor. If we have been 
deceived, the King cannot turn against us such a 
fraud ; if the condition of our sojourn be withdrawn, we 
should, at least, be replaced in the position that the 
treaty guaranteed." Then these unfortunate persons, 
who naively believed in justice, brought forth the copy 
of the acts they had signed. " We have always lived 
thus on our plighted oath, without having heard from 
any one that these agreements were null ; on the con- 
trary, they were recognized and acted upon in the last 
war. As for ourselves, we have preserved inviolate our 
fidelity to the oath, despite seductions and threats." 
" So much the worse for you," replied Cornwallis, " if 
you knew not the invalidity of these conventions, you 
now have only to submit, or you shall be despoiled of all 
you possess." This is a pretty fair summary of these 
negotiations, says Rameau, whom I am quoting. 

Obliged, before this quasi-Majesty to couch their 
thoughts in terms of the most profound respect, obliged 



GREAT EXCITEMENT. 243 

to avoid even the appearance of a contradiction, they 
were condemned beforehand to be in the wrong. It 
was the earthen jar against the iron pot. 

However, says Murdoch, the historian of Nova 
Scotia : " The memorials which these Acadians sent to 
the Council were all stamped with a respectful modera- 
tion and also with a profound conviction. They all 
rested on this fundamental point ; an oath of allegiance 
taken with all due restrictions, from which they had 
never consented to swerve since the conquest." 

The Acadians invariably asserted that they willingly 
recognized themselves to be the very faithful subjects of 
the King of England ; that the obligation to bear arms 
against their compatriots was repugnant to their 
feelings ; that, if an oath like the one they had already 
taken were accepted, they would be happy to remain in 
the country and maintain, under all circumstances, the 
inviolability of this oath. 

While these negotiations were being carried on, the 
excitement, as ma}' well be expected, was increasing in all 
the Acadian centres. Would their requests be granted ? 
Should they depart or should they not? Many were 
getting ready to go away ; the majority did not wish to 
do so without an express authorization of the governor. 
The French still occupied the north of the Bay of 
Fundy ; they were building a fort which they called 
Beaus£jour at a mile and a half from the village of 
Beaubassin. Great efforts were made by Abbe Le 
Loutre and the French to induce the Acadian colonists, 
and particularly those who dwelt near this frontier, to 
emigrate over to the French side. The haughty and 
unjust conduct of Cornwallis was beginning to produce 
the results he ought to have foreseen. Irritated by the 



244 GKEAT EXCITEMENT. 

efforts of the French to attract the Acadians to their 
settlements, he gave Captain Cobb the following order : 

" You are hereby to proceed to Chignecto (Beaubassin) to seize 
and secure as many of the inhabitants as you. can, or, in case they 
quit their houses upon your approach, you are to seize and secure 
as many of their wives and children as you think proper and de- 
liver them to the first English Fort you shall come to, to remain 
as hostages of their better behaviour." 

This order however, was not carried out. 

So, while on the one hand he was forcing the 
Acadians to choose between swearing allegiance and 
leaving the country, on the other he was giving orders 
to prevent them from taking advantage of his alter- 
native. 



BRIEF RETROSPECT. 245 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Cornwallis's proclamation is followed by the departure of some 
families — The emigration threatens to become general — In the 
beginning of May, 1750, the Acadian deputies, assembled at 
Halifax, ask leave to quit the country — Cornwallis, frightened, 
changes his tone — He avoids giving an answer ; will give it when 
they have done their sowing — Seed-time over, the deputies 
return to Halifax — Fresh subterfuge. 

Cornwallis seemed at length to understand that he 
was not going to obtain from the Acadians the oath he 
required; that they would submit to the cruel alter- 
native of abandoning their property and leaving the 
country rather than consent to an act that did violence 
to their feelings. All the old artifices, all the cheats of 
Nicholson, Vetch, Armstrong and Philipps were to be 
repeated to prevent their departure. 

In Nicholson's time, as we have seen, the Acadians 
were not allowed the benefit of the clauses of the 
treaty. Under various pretexts their departure was made 
impossible. On the one hand, French vessels were forbid- 
den to enter the ports ; on the other, the Acadians were 
not permitted to take passage in English ships. They 
built themselves small vessels ; but, when they wanted 
to equip them at Louisburg, this was refused. Later 
on, they were forbidden to apply at Boston. Undis- 
mayed, they begged the French authorities to act as 
mediators in their favor at the English court. When 
the order of the English Government instructing 



246 FRENCH NEUTRALS. 

Nicholson to give the Acadians full permission to leave 
was handed to Colonel Vetch, he pretended that he had 
no authority to act, that he must await the arrival of 
the governor. Nicholson, on his return, in order to 
avoid obeying orders, reserved certain points to the 
decision of the Queen. 

For three years the Acadians, who, perhaps, trusted 
artlessly in the good faith of their rulers, waited for the 
answer to these reserved points ; it never came. Sub- 
sequently, Philipps, thinking that the time had come 
for exacting an oath of allegiance, issued a proclamation 
ordering the taking of this oath within four months, or, 
in default thereof, departure from the province without 
taking away anything but clothes. Ill informed of the 
character of this people, he believed, as his predecessors 
did, that love of property and the absence of all means 
of transportation would force them to accept his pro- 
posals. Great was his surprise when he saw them at 
work opening out a road for their departure. This 
contingency had not entered into his calculations. He 
was equal to the emergency and forbade them to con- 
tinue that road. 

At last, finding that matters could not be settled 
otherwise, the Acadians resigned themselves to remain 
in the country and to take the oath, on condition that 
they should not bear arms against the French. This 
condition being accepted, the struggle came to an end. 
Thenceforth they were called by themselves, by their 
rulers, by everybody, " TJie French Neutrals.''' During 
twenty years, relying on this solemn agreement, they 
lived in the most perfect tranquillity. Not only the 
agreement was not disavowed, but both sides observed 
it scrupulously during all that time, and especially 



FRENCH NEUTRALS. 247 

during the war. At bottom, there was good faith only 
on one side ; the government was waiting for an oppor- 
tunity to repudiate what had been merely a makeshift 
to get out of a difficulty. 

The opportunity was now at hand in the foundation 
of Halifax. Cornwallis could now, he thought, speak 
as a master, ego nominor leo ; agreements were of little 
weight with him ; nor was it necessary for him to plead 
want of fidelity on the part of the Acadians, for of this 
he says not a word. Might for him was all sufficient ; 
with that, a soldier of his importance could snap his 
fingers at arguments. Like his predecessors, he believed 
the Acadians would elect to take the required oath 
rather than lose their possessions. Instead of a year or 
four months — the delay granted by Philipps — he allowed 
three months only ; and, like Philipps, he forbade them 
to take anything away. When, at last, he came to 
realize that the Acadians would quit the country rather 
than submit to his oath, he, too, adopted " ways that are 
dark : " " As they stayed to have copies of my answer in 
writing, I made them answer, without changing auything 
of my former declaration, or saying one word about it. 
My view is to make them as useful as possible while they 
do stay." 

This happened in September. He hoped that, when 
the season would be more advanced, there would no 
longer be question of leaving in winter ; by the time 
spring came round, he could find some other pretext, 
should they persist in their intentions. 

The French, as I have already pointed out, remained, 
after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in the northern part 
of the Bay of Fundy. This territory was disputed by 
the two crowns, and the question referred to a commis- 



248 THE GOVERNOR OF CANADA INTERFERES. 

sion. As soon as the foundation of Halifax was resolved 
upon, the French, supposing that the intention of the 
English was also to occupy and colonize the district of 
Beaubassin, had a mind to settle there permanently. 
Cornwallis's proclamation to the Acadians determined 
the French to improve the occasion and try to win them 
over. The Governor of Canada, M. de la Jonquiere, 
sent the Chevalier de la Corne with reinforcements 
strongly to occupy the isthmus from Beaubassin to Bay 
Verte. 

During this autumn of 1749, the English were too 
busy putting things into shape at Halifax to make any 
effective opposition to the manoeuvres of the French. 
The latter, taking advantage of the state of alarm into 
which the Acadians had been thrown by the Proc- 
lamation, left no stone unturned to induce them to 
choose the alternative of departure and emigrate all 
together. The French had to make haste, for the 
English would not fail, the next year, to thwart their 
plans. Meanwhile, as a check on them, Cornwallis 
threw a small garrison into Grand Pre* under Captain 
Handfield. Instigated by the French, no doubt, three 
hundred Indians in October (1749), blockaded this 
garrison with a view to enable the Acadians to quit the 
country without being molested by the soldiers. The 
attempt was made in vain ; not one of the Acadians 
wished to leave before obtaining a final answer from the 
Governor and without his permission. A few days 
later, seeing the uselessness of their efforts, the Indians 
raised the blockade, taking away with them the notary 
Le Blanc, Captain Hamilton and eighteen soldiers who 
had been surrounded and made prisoners in one of the 
sorties of the garrison. As no one was killed, it is 






A NEW DODGE. 249 

evident that the only object of this attack was to facili- 
tate the departure of the Acadians. 

On the affidavit of Honore Gauterot, a warrant was 
issued for the arrest of Charles Hebert, Francois Le 
Prince, Claude Le Prince, Renauchon Aucoin, Joseph 
Vincent, accused of having assisted the Indians ; but 
they could not be arrested. At Cobequid, where there 
were no troops, no protection of any sort, the Indians, 
by threats and violence, forced a part of the population 
to follow them before the arrival of the troops. 

In the following March (1750), Cornwallis wrote to 
the Duke of Bedford : 

11 1 propose to defer pressing them upon that head (the oath of 
allegiance) till we see what can be done at Beaubassin, and what 
settlers come from England ; then I will demand a peremptory 
answer" 

This letter had not yet reached its destination when 
Cornwallis received from the Secretary of State the order 
not to exact the oath for the present, and to treat the 
Acadians with kindness in order to wean them from 
their intention of quitting the country. 

At last, in the month of May, when the Acadians 
came to Halifax to beg leave to depart, there was noth- 
ing left but to choose between consenting and inventing 
some new dodge. Pretexts were getting rare : Nichol- 
son, Vetch, Armstrong and Philipps had almost ex- 
hausted the supply. However, listen to Cornwallis : 

" You were indebted to me for not having made you leave the 
country even during winter. But, after having past the winter in 
the province, it is ridiculous to come and tell me, that you will not 
sow having resolved to withdraw. My friends, you must go and sow 
your lands in order that they may be left in that condition in which 



250 CORNWALLIS COAXES. 

they ought to be at this season, without that you will have no right 
to expect the least favor from the government. When you have 
done your duty in this respect, 1 will give you a more precise reply 
to your request.'''' 

They had not been allowed to leave in English, 
French or Acadian vessels, by sea or land, in the autumn ; 
now the springtime is denied them, for they must sow 
their land. This long series of subterfuges, which 
would be incredible if the proof were not before our 
eyes, consigned in documents written by the governors 
themselves, is, however, not yet ended, as far as Corn- 
wallis's contribution is concerned. The Acadians were 
determined to have the last word. Seeing that, in order 
to obtain permission to quit the country, they had to 
sow their land for the benefit of strangers, they did so. 
When this work was over, on May 25th, they once more 
stood before the Governor, hoping that this time no 
new objection would be raised. Once more they were 
doomed to disappointment. There yet remained one 
pretext which had not been unearthed by Nicholson, 
nor Vetch, nor Philipps, nor hitherto by Cornwallis him- 
self. Only, there was danger lest the Acadians, detect- 
ing his purpose, should refuse any longer to submit to 
his trickery. Hence the oratorical precautions with 
which he approaches the subject. The irrepressible 
martinet, who, shortly before had been so harsh and 
haughty, finally understood that he must change his 
face ; he became gentle, insinuating, even flattering. 
Parkman, who has noticed nothing of the farce played 
anent the Acadians, or who has purposely ignored it, 
is deeply affected by Cornwallis's words : 

" We promised to give a precise reply to the inhabitants, with 






PASSPORTS REQUIRED. 251 

respect to the permission they ask to leave the Province when they 
shall have sown their lands, and, as it appears that you have obeyed 
our orders in that particular, we will explain to you our senti- 
ments on that very important affair, with the same sincerity that 
we have always made use of towards you. 

" My friends, the moment that you have declared your desire to 
leave and submit yourselves to another government, our deter- 
mination was to hinder nobody from following what he imagined 
to be his interest. 

"We frankly confess, however, that your determination to leave 
gives us pain. 

" We are well aware of your industry and your temperance, 
and that you are not addicted to any vice or debaucliery. This 
Province is your country ; you or your fathers have cidtivated it ; 
naturally you ought yourselves to enjoy the fruits of your labour. 

" When we arrived here, we expected that nothing would give 
you so much pleasure as the determination of His Majesty to settle 
this Province. Certainly nothing more advantageous to you could 
take place. You possess the only cultivated lands in this Province ; 
they produce grain and nourish cattle sufficient for the whole 
colony. In short, we flattered ourselves that we would make you 
the happiest people in the world. . . In your petitions you ask for 
a general leave. As it is impossible that you could all meet at a 
certain rendez-vous in order to set out all together, with all your 
families, one must understand by the expression, ' conge general,' a 
general permission to set out whenever you shall think proper, by 
land, or by sea, or by whatever conveyances you please. In order 
to effect this, we should have to notify all the commanders of His 
Majesty's ships and troops to allow every one to pass and repass 
which would cause the greatest confusion. . . 

" The only manner in which you can withdraw from the Prov- 
ince, is to follow the regulations already established. The order is, 
that all persons wishing to leave the Province shall provide them- 
selves with our passport. And we declare that nothing shall pre- 
vent us from giving such passports, the moment that peace and 
tranquillity are re-established in the Province.'''' 

Cornwallis must have thought himself very skilful, 
and indeed he showed great skill in striving to reverse the 
unfortunate impression he had at first produced, and to 
prevent at any cost the departure of the Acadians. Tired 



252 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. 

of short-lived tricks, which had several times betrayed 
his bad faith, he was now to hold the key of the situa- 
tion ; he would make that situation last as long as he 
pleased. Nobody could leave the country without first 
coming to him ; it was always in his power to refuse 
under pretext that the country was not quiet, or under 
any other pretext, it mattered little which ; the main 
thing was to put an end to these deputations that 
worried him. 

This subterfuge was, I believe, Cornwallis's last ; the 
country was tranquil, and would never be more so. The 
Acadians seemed to understand that those passports 
would never be granted to them ; for thenceforth they 
ceased to press their claims. They had been told to 
take the oath or go ; and, in point of fact, they had no 
alternative but to remain at the good pleasure of the 
Governor or leave without permission. They remained 
quietly on their lands until the time of the deportation. 
Those who had chosen to emigrate to French soil had 
done so, for the most part, the previous autumn after 
Cornwallis's proclamation. 

Cornwallis's behavior toward the Acadians was not 
only unjust, it could not have been more unwise than it 
was at his arrival in the country. He was confronted 
by a moral and peaceful people, from whom he had 
reason to hope for the most willing assistance and the 
most complete submission. To ensure their permanent 
attachment to the Crown, all he need do was to let them 
understand that they had nothing to fear from him, and 
to treat them with gentleness and humanity. 

After giving such evident proofs of their fidelity to 
the oath during the recent war, in exceptional circum- 
stances which enhanced their merit, after receiving the 



THE POWER OF KINDNESS. 253 

assurances of His Majesty through the Secretary of 
State, the Duke of Newcastle, the Acadians might have 
hoped that the bearing of the governors would not 
change. Cornwallis had only to let his better nature 
appear. Mildness and justice have always been infal- 
lible methods of action ; obedience and sympathy spring 
from kindness as water from its source ; no bond is 
lasting that is not woven of sympathy and justice. 
Scarcely had Cornwallis touched the soil of Acadia, 
when the Acadian deputies hastened to do him homage. 
What must they have thought, when, instead of the 
cordial welcome they had a right to expect, they were 
received with arrogance, when so severe a proclamation 
was flung in their teeth ? Did not this sudden change 
seem to say : " So long as we were weak, we had re- 
course to all sorts of subterfuges and stratagems to keep 
you in the country ; now that we are strong, we are 
going to speak as your lords and masters ; we mean to 
treat you in a very different way ? " Had they not 
reason to fear that their privileges would be taken from 
them one by one ? that the free exercise of their religion 
would be impeded, perhaps done away with ? Since the 
solemn agreements made twenty years before in the mat- 
ter of the oath were no longer respected, why should 
their other privileges escape the same fate ? 

For still another reason was this an excellent occasion 
for winning their affectionate fealty. The way the 
French officers had treated them during the invasions 
of the late war had considerably weakened their natural 
sympathy for France. A little kindness, together with 
the assurance that the foundation of Halifax would not 
alter the good understanding of the last ten years, would 
have sufficed to bind them to England more closely, and 



254 A LION IN THE PATH. 

to induce them later on, without pressure and without 
trickery, to take the much-desired oath. 

It would seem, at first sight, that with the foundation 
of Halifax the retention of the Acadians had ceased to 
be an important object. Their farms were the most 
fertile in the province, their system of dikes represented 
an enormous expenditure of labor ; these farms could 
give plenty to a population of 12,000 souls. Quite 
true ; but there was a lion in the path, as ready to 
devour now as he was in 1713. The Indians were still 
the irreconcilable enemies of the English. This hostility 
was skilfully fostered by the French of Cape Breton. 
So long as the latter owned a square mile of territory 
thereabouts, it would be impossible or, at least, dangerous, 
to establish new colonies without effectively protecting 
them at great expense against those Indians. Otherwise 
no one would risk settling there. 

However, the strongest motive for keeping the Aca- 
dians was the increase of strength the accession of their 
great numbers would give to France. This considera- 
tion, weighty enough in the days of Nicholson and 
Philipps, was doubly so now. The addition of thirteen 
thousand souls might make the situation of England in 
the peninsula very precarious. This was clear to 
Cornwallis, and just as clear to his successor, Hopson, 
when he begged the Lords of Trade not to force him to 
urge this question of the oath, alleging that, for the 
moment, it was impossible to make them take it, and 
that their departure would be the ruin of the country. 

The French were as much interested in getting them 
to quit Acadia as the English were in keeping them 
there. The question of the oath had been settled under 
Philipps for the benefit of England, and thenceforth 



EIGHTS OF THE FRENCH. 255 

France had seemed indifferent. But Cornwallis's 
proclamation, by withdrawing the long-standing agree- 
ment, had re-opened the whole question and now left 
the Acadians free to depart. As the proclamation 
itself said, the only issue was submission to an unre- 
stricted oath or departure. 

Cornwallis severely criticises the conduct of the 
French striving to win over the Acadians, and their 
conduct was indeed blameworthy, rather in its methods 
than in its purpose, for it was France's right and duty, 
as a party to the Treaty of Utrecht, to have an eye to 
the fulfilment thereof. Since the Acadians had the 
undoubted right to quit the country, the French had an 
equal right to persuade them to do so ; further than 
persuasion this right did not go. Because they used 
undue pressure and violence, they are to be blamed, and 
this blame they deserve to receive mnch more from the 
Acadians than from the authorities at Halifax. How- 
ever, the guilt of the French does not surpass nor even 
equal that of the governors : in the one case there was 
violence in the exercise of a right, in the other, violence 
against the exercise of a right. This oath, agreed to by 
Philipps, was for the Acadians the necessary condition of 
their remaining in the country, it bound the English 
Government quite as much as the Acadians. To say 
the least, they ought to have been restored to the 
position they occupied before Philipps's compromise ; 
that is, they ought to have once more become free to 
withdraw within the space of a year with all their 
effects, and even with the proceeds of the sale of their 
property. Cornwallis had, with no little subtlety, laid 
down the principle that no man can be a subject 
conditionally. But governments, as well as individuals, 



256 EIGHTS OF THE FRENCH. 

are bound to the conditions which they accept. There 
is no loophole of escape here. Either leave to depart 
must be granted to the Acadians who claimed it as a right 
recognized by a solemn treaty, or the conditions of their 
settlement must be sanctioned. This latter alternative 
having been accepted, the Government was as strictly 
bound as private persons are by contracts. Did not the 
autocratic Tzar accept the settlement of the Mennonites 
in his empire under the same condition of not bearing 
arms? True, this agreement was revoked a century 
later, but after notice given long beforehand and with 
the privilege of selling and carrying away all that 
belonged to them. Could a constitutional government 
like that of England do less ? As the Acadians wished 
to leave, they would have been justified in taking no 
account of Cornwallis's hindrances, and in departing 
with their effects and without passports, since the 
exacting of the latter was only a trick to keep them. 
But the generality of them did no such thing. They 
once more withstood all the seductions and threats of 
the French, as they had done during the war : a new 
proof of their firmness and submission to the Govern- 
ment ; a new proof also, may be, of the non-intervention 
of their clergy, if not of the slight influence of the 
latter. 



MISSIONARY TO THE INDIANS. 



257 



CHAPTER XV. 



Doings of the French — The Abbe Le Loutre — His character — 
Parkman's opinion. 

The entire summer of 1750 was devoted by the 
French to fortifying Fort Beause*jour, which they had 
begun the previous autumn. It was in the most land- 
ward part of the Bay of Fundy, on a high hill north of 
the village of Beaubassin and of the little river Messa- 
gouetche, which the French considered as the frontier 
of Acadia, until the decision of the commission then 
sitting. This district of Beaubassin, or Chignecto, as 
it was sometimes called, had become very populous, and 
oontained a vast extent of very fertile meadow land, of 
which a large portion was enclosed by strong dikes. 
Northward of this frontier were the settlements of 
Chipody, Petitcodiac, Memramcook, Jolicceur, Aulac, la 
pre*e des Bourgs, la pre*e des Richards, Cocagne, etc. 
Southward were the village of Beaubassin, the Riviere 
des Huberts, Menoudy, etc. Thus half, or nearly half, 
of this district was on English territory, and the French 
naturally expected that the English would lose no time 
in occupying it, were it only to prevent the emigration 
of the Acadians. 

In the mean time, the Abbe* Le Loutre, who was a 

self-constituted agent of the French, made great but 

vain efforts to determine the Acadians that lived near 

this frontier to go over to the French side. Here it 
17 



258 INDIANS HATE THE ENGLISH. 

will be well to pause and consider this Abbe* Le Loutre, 
who played so considerable a part in the events of this 
epoch. He has brought upon himself much hatred, not 
less from the French officers and even from the Acadians 
than from the English. 

For about ten years he was a missionary among the 
Micmac Indians of the river Shubenecadie, between 
Cobequid and Chibouctou (Truro and Halifax). We 
hardly ever hear of him till the war of 1744. In 1745 
he accompanied the Indians of his mission and others in 
an expedition against Annapolis, after which he with- 
drew to Bay Verte (on French territory or claimed as 
such by France) with his Indians. Shortly after, he 
went to France, whence he returned in 1747, when the 
war was drawing to a close. Thenceforward, until 1755 
he resided at Beause*jour. 

The foundation of Halifax alarmed the French ; they 
had alwa} 7 s hoped that some day or other a treaty or the 
chances of war would restore to them Acadia, which 
the English did not seem to value very highly, as they 
had done nothing to consolidate their conquest. The 
foundation of Halifax dashed these hopes ; it foreshad- 
owed a colonizing policy, which, in a few years, was to 
endear this province to England by its sacrifices and its 
population. Honor showed France what her duty was ; 
but honor in America was, between the two historic 
rivals, an evanescent quantity which frequently went 
no deeper than the surface of things. To save appear- 
ances was the main point, and these appearances were 
screened by the Indian allies of either nation. In the 
west, England had her savage allies, whom she occa- 
sionally used to defeat French plans ; there France also 
had hers, so that neither the one nor the other could 



INDIANS HATE THE ENGLISH. 259 

move without difficulty. But in the east all the Indians 
were friendly to France and sworn enemies of England, 
which, exasperated by their continued attacks, had 
fought them with a barbarity that frequently surpassed 
that of the savages themselves. These Indians had 
many wrongs to avenge, and so intense was their hatred 
of the English that it was always easy to urge them to 
hostile acts. 

It was dread of these Indians that, for half a century, 
prevented England from colonizing Nova Scotia. The 
French imagined that, by harassing the new colonists 
and spreading terror through skilfully managed hostili- 
ties, they would disgust them with the country and frus- 
trate England's projects. It was an inhuman and insane 
policy, which could only end in embittering England, 
and in increasing her efforts to dislodge a rival whose 
presence would ever be an obstacle to her commerce 
and to her expansion. 

The influence of the French on the Indians of these 
regions was artfully disguised; but we know enough 
about it to visit it with unqualified reprobation. The 
instrument employed by the governors of Canada to 
carry out this wicked and fatal policy was that Abbe* Le 
Loutre whom I have just mentioned. His blind zeal, 
his efforts urging the Indians to wony the colonists 
introduced by Cornwallis, his unjustifiable methods for 
forcing the Acadians against their will to cross the 
frontier, deserve to be condemned by every one and 
especially by the Acadians. 

Before proceeding, it is well to explain an important 
point which has never yet been cleared up. All histo- 
rians speak of the Abbe's Le Loutre, Germain, Maillard, Le 
Guerne, as if they had been missionaries to the Acadians 



260 A MISTAKE CORRECTED. 

on English territory. On this supposition, tlieir efforts 
to subserve the interests of France are interpreted as 
shameful. Now to obviate the confusion introduced by 
these writers, let it be well understood, once for all, 
that not one of these priests ever was, as far as I know, 
a missionary to the Acadians in the peninsula. Mail- 
lard, until the dispersion, was never employed as a mis- 
sionary elsewhere than in the island of Cape Breton, 
which belonged to France ; Germain ministered to the 
Malecite Indians in the upper waters of the St. John 
River ; Le Guerne was missionary among the Indians of 
the north shore of the Bay of Fundy, and also attended 
to the few Acadians living on these coasts. Le Loutre 
was long a missionary to the Micmacs of the Shubene- 
cadie River ; but during all that time he never caused 
any trouble ; when he decided upon another line of 
conduct, he withdrew with his Indians to Bay Verte on 
the French territory. Consequently, all of these priests 
were on the territory claimed and occupied by France ; 
hence their patriotism, ardent though it was, was justi- 
fiable, if not deserving of credit. If their actions were 
not honorable, let them be condemned. Because Le 
Loutre's conduct is condemnable, I stigmatize it as it 
deserves. But it is a sovereign injustice toward these 
men to leave the public under an impression that blames 
what is honorable, and brands with infamy what is merely 
blamable. 

This important distinction ought not, in fairness, to 
have escaped the attention of these writers, still less 
that of Parkman, who lays especial stress on the doings 
of this Abbe* Le Loutre. Yet he seems to have done 
his best to increase the confusion. Thus, when he tells 
us that Le Loutre was Vicar-General of Acadia; that 



WILFUL DECEPTION. 261 

the Indians to whom he ministered lived a day's march 
from Halifax on the banks of the Shubenecadie River, 
which implies that that was his residence, he is know- 
ingly guilty of a twofold deception, because Le Loutre 
was not then Vicar-General, and because both he and 
his Indians had long since left the Shubenecadie River, 
and then lived at Bay Verte on the territory claimed 
and occupied by France. I might add that the decep- 
tion is threefold, because Le Loutre was named, four 
years later, Vicar-General, not for Acadia or the pe- 
ninsula, but for the northern part of the Bay of Fundy, 
then called French Acadia to distinguish it from Canada 
and from the peninsula which the French called Eng- 
lish Acadia.* 

I should be glad to be able to say that Parkman 
merely blundered ; but I cannot : I have studied too 
closely his methods, I am too fully aware of his con- 
stant efforts at disguising the truth, not to recognize, 
here as elsewhere, the elaborate system of deceit that 
underlies every page he has written on Acadia. Dura 
Veritas, sed Veritas. 

I have sought to penetrate the character of this 
Abbe Le Loutre who has heaped well-deserved hatred 
on his own devoted head. The undertaking was far 
from easy ; however, I think I have had a large meas- 
ure of success. Parkman, who " rushes in where 
angels fear to tread," soon measures and weighs him. 
In a few words, with the laconism of Csesar describing 
his conquest in Gaul — " veni, vidi, vici," he says 
oracularly : " Le Loutre was a man of boundless egotism, 

* Parkman saw the proof of this last fact in a report of the Acadian Mis- 
sions by the Abbe de L'ile-Dieu in 1755, who was himself Vicar-General of 
the diocese of Quebec, on which the missions of Acadia depended, and who 
was, therefore, the best authority on this question. 



262 CLAPTRAP. 

a violent spirit of domination, an intense hatred of the 
English, and a fanaticism that stopped at nothing." 
Sir Oracle " opes his mouth ; let no dog bark." As a 
literary effect it is startling ; the common herd likes to 
be thus whirled at a gallop through the obscurities of 
history ; nothing is so popular and catchy as this sem- 
blance of devouring activity which pierces to the quick, 
cuts out and fashions, as by magic, a something that 
looks surprisingly like a brand-new bright and polished 
gem. Serious writers, however, disdain this claptrap. 
Seldom, if ever, can a striking portrait of the inner 
depths of a man's character be drawn by a few strokes 
of the pen. Caricatures can ; and, as a caricature, 
Parkman's portrait of Le Loutre may bear a distant 
resemblance to the original. Macaulay also seeks con- 
ciseness and rapid movement ; but he does not seem to 
have discovered Parkman's secret ; on the contrary, like 
the great masters, he limns his portraits with the 
greatest care, the result being that they are generally 
good likenesses, thanks to the after-touches of pen and 
brush, to the delicacy of shades and tints, to the pains- 
taking patience of the artist. 

With some corrections I might admit, as a back- 
ground, one or two of the four pen-strokes of Parkman; 
but I refuse to subscribe to the " boundless egotism " of 
Le Loutre. I see no proof of this assertion and much 
proof of the exact opposite. To arrive at a fair esti- 
mate of Le Loutre, one must enter into the feelings and 
thoughts that generally actuate a Catholic missionary. 
Clearly, this was difficult, not to say impossible for 
Parkman, even if he had been gifted with that rectitude 
which, to my mind, he lacks, and with that penetration 
in which, though to a less degree, he is deficient. 



FAITH AND UNFAITH. 263 

Moreover, this character must be viewed in the light 
of the ideas of the time and of the special circumstances 
of the place. Great was national fanaticism, but greater 
still was religious fanaticism. Prejudices had struck 
deep roots. Persecution was only beginning to relax 
its revolting rigor ; but intolerance still subsisted in all 
its strength. Not long before, France had expelled the 
Huguenots; Ireland was gasping under England's heel; 
everywhere minorities were oppressed. What crimes 
were committed in the name of religion ! What acts 
of cruelty done in the name of a good and merciful 
God ! Was this a fruit of Christianity or of human 
interests and passions? Was this a permanent result, 
or merely a transient phase, a bad dream that would 
wear itself out and indirectly serve the cause of Chris- 
tianity and civilization ? This last question must have 
been in many people's minds ; two answers were to be 
given to it : unbelief, fruit of a spurious and merciless 
Christianity ; and a return movement to the pure 
Christian spirit, all impregnated with charity, love, and 
mercy. Man moves and God directs. In the life of 
religions as in that of commonwealths nothing happens 
without an aftermath which no one had suspected. 
Small events added together produce great events ; 
fact is linked to fact by invisible bonds, as thread to 
thread in the weaver's loom. 

Though the true fibre of Christianity was warped, 
faith was strong ; in other words, motives were excel- 
lent, methods often deplorable ; this double aspect of 
things should be borne in mind when judging Abbe Le 
Loutre. It is no easy matter for us, men living in the 
world, to realize the faith that animates those who con- 
secrate their lives to Christian education, especially to 



264 LE LOUTRE NO EGOTIST. 

the irksome catechetical labors of a Catholic missionary- 
Struggling as we are with one another for the necessaries 
or the comforts of existence, absorbed and, as it were, 
overwhelmed by the thousand and one details of ways 
and means for needs and pleasures, we easily lose sight 
of the motives that actuate and the spirit that animates 
the missionary. That 4 boundless egotism ' which Park- 
man attributes to Le Loutre, applicable, as it very often 
is, to ourselves, can hardly be applied to the missionary. 
He who, like Le Loutre, had forsaken fortune, pleasure, 
kindred, friends and fatherland, to spend his life in the 
heart of the forest with coarse and cruel savages, he 
who, in order to evangelize these savages, had volun- 
tarily embraced privations of all sorts, from which the 
most devoted of men would recoil in disgust and horror, 
could not be, what Parkman fancies him, 'a man of 
boundless egotism.' 

No doubt human nature is very complex, no doubt a 
man's high calling does not destroy his natural bent ; 
still, as a general rule, incompatible defects disappear 
or are dwarfed and replaced by other defects compatible 
with the new vocation. In the case of a missionary, 
egotism, having nothing to feed on, must be diminished 
or obliterated, though it may sometimes be replaced by 
other defects which are, so to speak, the human excres- 
cences of the divine gift of a lively faith. From this 
view-point must we examine into the defects of Le 
Loutre. 

In what he did where is the proof of that ' boundless 
egotism ? ' In that he harassed the English settle- 
ments ? In that he tried hard to force the Acadians to 
emigrate and thus be deprived of their property ? Other 
motives may explain these acts, but certainly not ego- 



MOTIVES FOR ALARM. 265 

tism. No other motives at all commensurate with his 
selfless activity can be assigned but religion and pa- 
triotism, especially religion, to which he had sacrificed his 
life. He had spent twelve peaceful years among his 
Indians when Halifax was founded. From that mo- 
ment, his activity, his zeal, his fanaticism rose to a high 
key ; he is no longer a mild and peaceable missionary ; 
he is a dictator, an energumen frantically striving to 
snatch the Acadians from their country, as if he were 
struggling with a madman on the brink of a precipice. 
Unable to persuade even those who lived near the 
frontier to emigrate willingly, he gets the Indians to 
burn down their houses in order to constrain them. 
What had happened to him ? Whence this change ? 
Evidently, something had filled his soul with anxiety, 
and that anxiety could be only the effect of some im- 
pending danger to religion. The change wrought in 
him can scarcely be explained otherwise. 

This impending danger is easily found. Have we 
not seen that Shirley had entertained the project of 
Protestantizing the Acadians, of expelling their priests? 
that he had reaffirmed this project with extraordinary 
persistency ? that, a vague rumor of it, having reached 
the Acadians, had given them great alarm? What 
wonder that Le Loutre should have been inexpressibly 
shocked at it and profoundly convinced that this project 
would soon be realized ? Since it had been conceived 
in time of war, when the neutrality of the Acadians was 
most needed, when these very Acadians were withstand- 
ing seductions and threats for the sake of fidelity to 
their oath, when Acadia was practically at their mercy, 
defended, as it was, by a mere handful of soldiers, had 
they not everything to fear now that Halifax was 



26Q MOTIVES FOR ALARM. 

founded ? Had not Cornwallis marked his arrival by a 
proclamation which annulled the agreement of 1730 
and the recent engagements of the King through his 
Secretary of State, the Duke of Newcastle ? Had not 
the deportation itself been already thought of by a 
Secretary of State (Craggs) ? Had not the same idea 
been entertained by Admiral Knowles and by Shirley 
himself, and in each case without any excuse? Even 
though Le Loutre may not have known all these things, 
he surely knew enough to feel his soul stirred to its 
depths. I do not hesitate to say that his fears were not 
only justifiable but, to all appearances from what we 
now know, founded upon stubborn facts. Under such 
circumstances we need only consider the ardor of his 
faith and suppose that he was hot-tempered, to find a 
satisfactory explanation of his conduct, without draw- 
ing on our imagination for a fancy picture that has no 
solid foundation. 

How far removed soever we may be from the ideas of 
a man we wish to judge, we must, in order to pass judg- 
ment on him with some degree of precision, put aside 
our own views and enter, as far as possible, into his, 
taking into account his beliefs, his education, his sur- 
roundings. Le Loutre had sacrificed everything to one 
single idea; he had sacrificed the enjoyments of this 
world for the joys of the next. To us, to the man of 
the world, this Abbe"s ideas seem very narrow ; to him, 
perhaps, our struggles to acquire things frivolous and 
transitory must have appeared very mean ; we find him 
cruel to deprive the Acadians of their homes ; for him 
the sacrifice was nothing compared to the loss of relig- 
ion. The scientific theorist buried in meditation, and 
the astronomer soaring in thought through interstellai 



A GENEROUS SOUL. 267 

space, both strangers to this nether earth they tread, are 
also to the worldling very narrow-minded ; yet we, in 
our feverish moving to and fro, appear to them, from 
their high vantage-ground, as so many little ants bus- 
tling around an ant-hill. 

Le Loutre's faults, to my thinking, are attributable 
rather to his ill-balanced mind than to a disordered will. 
Like all men of one idea, he was ignorant of the world 
and unsuited to the governance of men. His letters to 
his superiors are impregnated with an ardent faith and 
the purest spirit of the gospel. In 1740 he wrote to his 
superior: " Remember that I am here only in obe- 
dience to your orders ; I am here for the glory of God 
and the salvation of souls." In 1747, when he had 
returned to France, his superiors, thinking that he had 
had his share of hardship, proposed that he should re- 
main there. Deeming that he had not done enough for 
his salvation, he refused all such offers. We know that, 
on several occasions, he saved the lives of English 
officers ; that Captain Hamilton, who had witnessed his 
kindliness, esteemed him highly ; that, after the deporta- 
ion and his return to France, he became a ministering 
angel to the Acadian refugees, that he devoted his 
time and his money to the alleviation of their lot. 

His friend, Abbe" Maillard, who had initiated him 
into the Micmac language and the management of 
missions, was himself, though in a lesser degree, 
involved in the same condemnation. He spent the last 
years of his life at Halifax, in the midst of those who 
had been his enemies. Now, he conquered them all by 
the irresistible ascendency of his talent and virtue. 
There stood by his dying bed the Protestant minister 
whose friendship he had won and who read certain 



268 A GENEKOUS SOUL. 

prayers to him at his own request ; the elite of Halifax 
society, civil and military, the government and the 
council followed his remains to the tomb. Perhaps, 
under similar circumstances, Le Loutre would have 
received the same homage. What we know of him 
rests on so valueless an authority — Pichon — that no his- 
torian, except Parkman, has consented to use it. More 
of this anon. 



FORTS BEAUSEJOTJR AND LAWRENCE. 269 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Murder of Edward Howe — What Parkman says of it — He accuses 
Le Loutre — His partiality and his ruses — " Les Memoires sur le 
Canada" — Pichon — What he was. 

Cornwallis's proclamation had revived in the 
French the hope of regaining the sympathy of the 
Acadians, which the events of the last war had severely 
shaken. De la Galissonniere, the new governor of 
Canada, hoped it would now be easy to decide them to 
emigrate. For this purpose he needed a man active, 
determined, known to the Acadians and able to exert 
influence over them. He was not slow to understand 
how serviceable would be Le Loutre, who was already 
heading a movement in this direction. Thenceforth 
until the fall of Beause*jour, four years later, Le Loutre, 
owing to his high standing with the governor, shared 
with the local authorities the conduct of affairs in this 
part of the country. He seems to have inspired all the 
operations directed against the English in the penin- 
sula. 

Surmising that the English would soon occupy Beau- 
bassin and build a fort there, the French vigorously 
pushed on the works at Fort B cause* jour. They had to 
make haste and lay waste the English side of the 
frontier. Having hitherto failed to make the Acadians 
emigrate voluntarily, Le Loutre, in order to gain his 
point and to leave the English in a wilderness, decided. 



270 EDWAKD HOWE. 

as a last resort, to fire the dwellings of the Acadians. 
On the approach of the English, commanded by Law- 
rence, the Indians, doubtless obeying Le Loutre's orders, 
set about their incendiary work and destroyed most of 
the Acadian houses. The pretty village of Beaubassin, 
which contained over one hundred buildings, was 
reduced to ashes, the church with the rest. The 
inhabitants, left without shelter, were obliged to take 
refuge on the French side of the frontier. Lawrence, 
finding nothing but ruins, and having too small a force 
to resist if attacked, re-embarked with his troops and 
withdrew. In September, he returned with seventeen 
small vessels and seven hundred men. After a slight 
skirmish with the French outposts, he established 
himself on the site of the village of Beaubassin and 
built a fort there, which he called Fort Lawrence, less 
than two miles from Fort Beause'jour, and a few 
hundred yards from the little river Messagouetche, 
which the French looked upon as the frontier between 
the two countries. 

Lawrence was succeeded the following year by Cap- 
tain Scott, and it was shortly after the arrival of the 
latter, in October, 1751, that occurred the murder of 
Edward Howe, which made such a noise at the time and 
threw a shroud of sadness and stupor over botli camps. 
Howe had been for many years judge of the Court of 
Admiralty and commissary of the English forces in 
Acadia. He had been first counsellor to Governor 
Mascarene, and, when Cornwallis became governor, 
he sat in the council next to Mascarene.* As com- 

* According to a custom established at the occupation of the country. 
Howe should have succeeded Mascarene as governor; but the foundation 
of Halifax led to a derogation from this rule. Some weeks before How-'s 
death, Cornwallis had asked to be relieved, but he had also sugc 



EDWARD HOWE. 271 

missary of the forces, he had had long and con- 
tinued intercourse with the Acadians, and, as he 
spoke French fluently, he was Mascarene's principal 
adviser and go-between in the efforts made to keep 
them faithful to the Government. His influence with 
the Acadians rivalled that of Mascarene, and he was 
distinctly the man for all difficult missions. He was 
acknowledged on all hands to be a man of great worth, 
of tried and trusted bravery and devotion. 

The mission confided to him by Cornwallis at Fort 
Lawrence seems to have been to negotiate the return of 
the Acadian refugees, to conclude a treaty with the 
Indians and to withdraw from their hands the prisoners 
made by them two years before at Grand Pre*. 



Lawrence as his successor, on the plea that Mascarene " had sold out and 
was worn out, and that Howe, not being a military man, was unfit." Pos- 
sibly, Cornwallis's objection to Howe might not have been accepted, for 
Lawrence was not appointed his successor. Howe is almost invariably 
designated under the title of Captain ; the reason probably was that he was 
commissary of the forces and had often been charged with military opera- 
tions : thus, when Annapolis was first attacked by Duvivier, he was ordered 
by Mascarene to dislodge the enemy and to raze the houses that protected 
them. At the battle of Grand Pre, Howe fell grievously wounded beside 
Colonel Noble. As he was fast bleeding to death from a wound he had re- 
ceived in the left arm, he asked a French officer to have the wound dressed 
by their surgeon ; but the latter was busy with M. Coulon de Villiers, also 
■badly wounded ; then Howe begged the French officer to transmit his re- 
quest to the English surgeon. This led to overtures of surrender, and 
Howe, weakened though he was, acted as interpreter during the negotia- 
tions. He was allowed to withdraw to Annapolis on parole, and afterwards 
he was exchanged for M. Lacroix and all the Canadian prisoners then at 
Boston. 

Murdoch says of him : " He left several children. The esteem he won 
while living, the general usefulness of his conduct as an early founder of 
our colony, and the cruel circumstances of his death commend his memory 
to us who enjoy a happy, peaceful and prosperous home ; for the security 
and comfort of which we are bound to be grateful to those who pioneered 
the way in the earliest periods under many and serious circumstances." 

Edward Howe is one of my ancestors. His descendants are numerous 
in the Districts of Three Rivers and Montreal. Conspicuous among them 
are Theodore Doucet, Esq., N. P. ; his sisters Lady Middleton and the 
Comtesse de Bligny; Edmund Barnard, Esq., Q. C. ; Lieutenant-Colonel 
Hughes, Chief ofPolice in Montreal ; Odilon Doucet of the Post Office De- 
partment in Ottawa ; Antonio Prince, M.P.P. ; Auguste Richard, Vice- 
Consul of France in Winnipeg ; Canons Jean and Joel Prince. 



272 paekman's stoey. 

Listen to Parkman relating in his own way the 
circumstances of his death : 

" Among the English officers was Captain Edward Howe, an in- 
telligent and agreeable person who spoke French fluently, and had 
been long stationed in the Province. Le Loutre detested him ; 
dreading his influence over the Acadians, by many of whom he 
was known and liked. One morning, at about eight o'clock, the 
inmates of Fort Lawrence saw what seemed an officer from Beau- 
sejour, carrying a flag, and followed by several men in uniform, 
wading through the sea of grass that stretched beyond the Mis- 
sagouetche. When the tide was out, this river was but an ugly 
trench of reddish mud gashed across the face of the marsh, with 
a thread of half fluid slime lazily crawling along the bottom ; but 
at high tide it was filled to the brim with an opaque torrent that 
would have overflowed, but for the dikes thrown up to confine it. 
Behind the dike on the farther bank stood the seeming officer, wav- 
ing his flag in sign that he desired a parley. He was in reality no 
officer, but one ofLe Loutre 's Indians in disguise, Etienne le Batard, 
or, as others say, the great chief Jean Baptiste Cope. Howe, carry- 
ing a white flag, and accompanied by a few officers and men, went 
towards the river to hear what he had to say. As they drew near, 
his look and language excited their suspicion. But it was too late : 
for a number of Indians, who had hidden behind the dike during 
the night, fired upon Howe across the stream, and mortally 
wounded him. They continued their fire on his companions, but 
could not prevent them from carrying the dying man to the fort. 
The French officers, indignant at this villainy, did not hesitate to 
cJiarge it upon Le Loutre : for, says one of them : ' Wliat is not a 
wicked priest capable of doing ? ' " 

The very special interest I have taken in trying to 
get at the facts in this mournful tragedy will easily be 
credited on the score of my descent ; yet, the true state 
of the case still seems to me very doubtful. I should 
never dream, in putting any version of the story before 
the public, of being as dogmatical as Parkman is. I 
believe I have seen all the documents he has seen him- 
self ; at any rate, I have seen all those he quotes : how- 






"MEMOIKES SUR LE CANADA." 273 

ever, he gives new details, which I have reason to think 
have been evolved by his imagination alone. The 
story is based on three or four different accounts, all 
more or less contradictory ; he has adopted the one 
which seems to me the least probable, the least honor- 
able. The authority he relies on is so questionable that 
serious writers fight shy of it, or, if they refer to it, they 
are candid enough to warn the reader and let him know 
their reasons for distrusting that authority. 

Some idea may be formed of Parkman's calibre as an 
historian by the fact that this rejected authority, and 
another almost as questionable, supply much of the ma- 
terial for the two chapters which he devotes to the his- 
tory of Acadia in his "Montcalm and Wolfe." These 
two chapters, one entitled " Conflict for Acadia," and 
the other, " The Removal of the Acadians," contain 
ninety pages. He skims lightly over the events of the 
first forty years in ten pages, in order to get quickly to 
Abbe Le Loutre and to devote to him the greater part 
of his narrative. 

The doings of this ardent abbe were too keenly in- 
teresting to Parkman to allow of his losing this oppor- 
tunity. What a sensational chapter he could create out 
of the chaos of historic data ! Unfortunately, most of 
what we know of the doings of Le Loutre rests on the 
two suspicious sources I have just mentioned. The 
less contemptible of the two is an anonymous work 
styled " M^moires sur le Canada, 1749-1760." Parkman 
takes good care not to say that the book is anonymous, 
that the author professes a deep hatred for the clergy, 
that he is so partial to the infamous Intendant Bigot as to 
call him an honest man. This author's hatred for the 

clergy is so glaring that Murdoch, who incidentally 

18 



274 A DISTRUSTED TRAITOR. 

quotes him in reference to other matters, has the frank- 
ness to cast doubts on his veracity : 

" It must nevertheless be remembered that we have derived our 
information of Le Loutre from sources not friendly to priests — 
the French of that period being tinged with the philosophy of Vol- 
taire." 

This is the caution of an historian worthy of the 
name ; but Parkman, as usual, is silent about all such- 
matters, nay, he emphasizes his inferences by laying 
stress on the fact that he is quoting an authority that is 
French. His fraud, however, does not stop there. To- 
add weight to his assertions, he sometimes uses the 
author vaguely as " a Catholic contemporary" as if a 
Voltairian could be a Catholic, and thus we cannot even 
guess that he is alluding to the " Me*moires sur le Can- 
ada." No alternative is left to the ingenuous reader 
but to suppose that there is question of some additional 
authority corroborating what was said by another writer 
or confirming the " Me*moires " themselves. Of one 
poor authority he cunningly builds up two apparently 
good ones. This is killing two birds with one stone : 
multiplying by dividing. Between such double-dealing 
and the candor of Murdoch yawns a bridgeless gulf. 

Parkman's other authority is very much worse yet, 
and, in passing from one to the other, he falls out of 
the frying-pan into the fire. I refer to Pichon, a French 
subaltern, who, after having been several years at 
Louisburg, was transferred to Beausejour in 1753, that 
is, two years after the events we are now considering. 
Captain Scott was then in command at Fort Lawrence. 
Pichon found means to secure an interview with him, 
in the course of which he offered his services, pledging 



A DISTRUSTED TRAITOR. 275 

himself, in return for a pecuniary reward and promises 
of protection, to communicate all the information he 
could get hold of on the actions and plans of the French, 
and copies of all the documents that might pass through 
his hands. Pichon transacted this hateful business 
with great assiduity, in his communications, first with 
Scott and later on with Captain Hussey, who soon suc- 
ceeded the former in the command of Fort Lawrence. 
Pichon continued his treachery at Halifax, Louisburg 
and Philadelphia ; after which he withdrew to England,- 
where he published a pamphlet entitled, " Letters and 
Memoirs relating to Cape Breton." 

Such was the man and such the part he played. A 
creature of this stamp is, evidently, not a weighty 
authority, even if there were nothing worse against 
him ; but we have plenty of other reasons for discredit- 
ing his testimony. He was all that his dirty work 
implied. Captain Hussey, when transmitting to the 
Governor the information he had received from Pichon, 
gave his reasons for believing and for doubting him, 
and frequently pointed out his inconsistencies and the 
slender credit one could give to his affirmations ; so 
much so that he ended by expressing the opinion that it 
would be better to cease all intercourse with him. Dr. 
Brown also discusses the testimony and the writings of 
Pichon, and very sagaciously sets off the baseness they 
reveal. Admiral Boscawen would not believe Pichon, 
and Murdoch, having to quote him with regard to the 
taking of Beause*jour, begs the reader's pardon, and 
alleges as an excuse the absence of all other sources of 
information.* 

* Capt. Hussey to Capt. Scott, 11th of Nov. 1754. The inconsist- 
ency, the fear of guilt, make the guilty commit absurdities ruinous to 



276 PARKMAN DISSECTED. 

Without the " Memoires sur le Canada " and Pichon's 
numerous details, Parkraan would have to lose all his 
anecdotes about Le Loutre and the most interesting 
part of his two chapters. He knew how all that 
would be eagerly devoured, how his gifts of word- 
painting would tell in the book-market. What was 
to be done ? The situation was ticklish in the ex- 
treme, full of temptations and dangers. Must he let 
so fine a plum fall without plucking it whilst it is 
within easy reach ? True, no one had ever dared to 
touch it before ; but this only made it more of a tempta- 

themselves. Traitors are never cordially believed ; how is it possible 
to bind them by ordinary ties ? " 

Later, Husseyto Scott: "enclosed you have some letters I received 
fromPichon,Jmv.s£ confess I hare some suspicions of his sincerity. . ." 

Hussey to the Commissioner in Chief, 12th Nov. 1754: "The 9th of 
this month I received the enclosed letter, which, whether authentic 
or not, I think my duty to transmit to you. . . J cannot help sus- 
pecting Pichon's sincerity, and very often find <j rent inconsistencies 
in his letters. Tcannot but remark, that in this, sir, he makes the gov- 
ernor of Canada say that he engages Le Loutre and de Vergor to rind 
some plausible pretext to make the Indians break out, and tells me 
that de Vergor will take care that they do not attempt anything 
here." 

" He hath also, ever since I have been here, complained how nar- 
rowly he is observed and how jealous Le Loutre — whom in contempt 
he styles Moses — is of him, which I think, is- a little inconsistent 
with his trusting him with his letters so far as to take copies of them. 

" I think, sir, I have good reasons to believe that the letter Pichon 
calls Mr. Dusquesne's is of his own composing, for I am this morning 
informed from. . . . 

" Mr. Pichon is also7nistaken about. . . . would you think proper 
of my keeping up this correspondence with him during the winter ?" 

The Rev. Mr. Brown devotes a whole chapter to dissecting Pichon's 
inconsistencies and character, with the title: " Casual hints from the 
letters of Pichon indicating the state of his mind during his traitor- 
ous correspondence." 

Admiral Boscawen, writing to Lord Chatham after the taking of 
Louisburg in 1758, says: " I received this statement with but a mod- 
erate amount of belief in its accuracy, as Pichon my informer was not 
there himself, and, being an open scoffer at the priesthood, without 
impugning his veracity, I think he was prone to believe any canards 
he heard that tended to disparage French authorities or priests. It 
resembles too closely the harsh charges of pillage at Beausejour for 
which we have only his assertion." 



FIVE TRICKS. 277 

tion and a relish. Se non e vero, e ben trovato. At 
last, the inevitable has come to pass ; Parkman yields 
and seizes the forbidden fruit. Still, we must give him 
credit for having long hesitated before plucking it, as 
is evident from the great pains he takes to disguise 
Pichon's identity and to suppress whatever might de- 
preciate him. 

An analysis of Parkman's embarrassment is extremely 
interesting ; it constitutes a sort of vivisection of the 
ways and means, ruses and shifts that may be adopted 
by a tricky writer. We witness the fluctuations of a 
soul buffeted to and fro by glee and distress, and yet 
maturing the most skilful combinations of a fertile 
brain. 

As to the " Me*moires sur le Canada," he seems to 
have made up his mind readily enough. After all, 
thought he, there was no need to follow Murdoch's 
example ; it was not absolutely necessary to say that 
the work is anonymous, that it exudes hatred of the 
clergy. But, in the case of Pichon, the problem was 
far more difficult ; something must be said of the part 
he played. Here several alternative courses were open 
to Parkman : he might (1) quote Pichon under the vague 
designation of "a French officer ;" (2) simply refer to his 
letters or to the page of the volume of the archives for 
those of his letters that are there ; * (3) mention his name 
without comment ; (4) acknowledge Pichon's odious oc- 
cupation and yet say something in his favor to act as a 
buffer against the shock of the disclosure ; or, (5) finally, 
take shelter behind some respectable name. Instead of 
choosing one of these numerous alternatives, Parkman 

* The Compiler has yielded to the same temptation ; he has inserted 
some of Pichon's letters in the volume of the archives. Arcades ambo. 



278 FIVE TRICKS. 

thought the best way out of the tangle was to take 
them all up one after another, in skilful gradation, so 
as properly to prepare the reader. Thus, in case of 
attack, he had five doors to escape through, not to speak 
of the windows. In sheer astuteness it would be hard 
to find a parallel to this feat. All Parkman seems to 
care about is to cover and protect his retreat in case of 
an attack, which was very unlikely. Who would be 
painstaking and suspicious enough to search and fer- 
ret out, to weigh and compare? Certainly not the 
Acadians, whose astuteness would not rise to the level 
of such refined tricks. If we could have read Park- 
man's thoughts and seen him chuckling over his discov- 
ery of these five tricks for whitewashing or concealing 
his Pichon, we should have witnessed a scene of high 
comedy. 

First trick : Pichon's name does not appear ; Park- 
man quotes him in this way : " A French officer says," 
" a French writer relates," doing like the naughty boy 
in the Spanish proverb who throws a stone and then 
puts his hands in his pockets, " lira la piedra y esconde 
la mano" Second trick : a little further on, he refers 
to the pages of the volume of the archives, still with- 
out naming Pichon. Third trick : he names Pichon 
without a word of comment. Fourth trick : he tells us 
very briefly what Pichon was, but does his best to raise 
him in the reader's estimation : " He was now acting the 
part of a traitor, carrying on a secret correspondence. 
He was a man of education, born in France of an English 
mother, he was author of genuine letters relating to 
Cape Breton, a work of some value. " 

Thanks to this method, the reader is not aware that 
Pichon has been really quoted about twenty times. If 



WHITEWASHING PICHON. 279 

he knows nothing of Parkman's dodges (and how could 
he know them ?), he supposes that the " French officer" 
was very respectable, and that his testimony is all the 
more convincing because he relates facts that tell against 
his fellow-countrymen. In the second alternative, the 
authority is, apparently, no longer " a French officer," 
still less Pichon, but the volume of the archives, there- 
fore, some official document; this satisfies the reader, 
and saves him the trouble of consulting that volume. 
In the third alternative, he reads Pichon's name ; but, 
as he does not yet know who he is, he pays no special 
attention to that name. At length, in another chapter, 
towards the end of the story, and far apart from the 
first, he learns that a certain Thomas Pichon, a store- 
keeper, was a traitor to his country ; but there is nothing 
to show that he is the French officer quoted in another 
chapter, especially as Parkman, by another character- 
istic ruse of his, speaks of him, no more as an officer, 
but as " Commissary of stores." Moreover, the reader, 
being introduced to a man of whom Parkman writes 
favorably, lays no further stress on the matter. He has 
been deftly thrown off the scent. 

It must be admitted that all this is " very smart," 
and such smartness, with an attractive style, is a 
quality with which Parkman cannot but be credited. 
Yet he seems, at last, to have been ashamed of himself, 
or rather, to have feared lest perhaps his artifice should 
be discovered; for — and this is the fifth trick — after 
what he has admitted about the traitor, he adds, while 
quoting Pichon once more, " Pichon cited by Murdoch." 
Evidently he felt he was not quite safe ; he must seek 
shelter behind a respectable name. But Murdoch, who 
really does cite Pichon once or twice, speaks of him at 



280 pichon's story. 

some length and tells us immediately and without sub- 
terfuge what he was. He cites him anent the siege of 
Beause'jour on questions that have no further importance 
than to satisfy curiosity ; and, even then, he seems to 
have felt scruples, and so excuses himself by the absence 
of other sources : " In the following account of the siege 
of Beause'jour we have not any English account, official 
or private, to help us. . . . The main parts of our nar- 
rative are derived from Pichon." 

Thus, Murdoch's use of him, far from being blame- 
worthy, gives us a high idea of the historian's character ; 
while Parkman's methods produce a diametrically oppo- 
site impression, and, in particular, his attempt to enlist 
Murdoch as an accomplice, aggravates, instead of attenu- 
ating, his guilt. 

Painful as is the task I have undertaken with respect 
to Parkman, I venture to think that the interests of 
historic truth make it imperative. Leaving to others 
the duty of applying a similar analysis to his other 
works, I will confine myself to the ninety pages he has 
written on the subject in hand. 

After this long parenthesis I return to the murder of 
Edward Howe and to Parkman's account of it, drawn 
from Pichon, who was then at Louisburg ; for, as has 
already been said, he did not come to Beause'jour till 
two years later, in 1753, so that he was not even a resi- 
dent, still less an eye-witness. We have read how 
Parkman said : " The French officers indignant at this 
villainy, did not hesitate to charge it upon Le Loutre, 
for, says one of them : " What is not a wicked priest capable 
of doing r " 

Now, I am going to give Pichon's account of this 



A TELL-TALE PHRASE. 281 

murder. It is to be found at page 195 of the Volume 
of the Archives : 

" It was very wrongfully and with the greatest injustice that the 
English accused the French of having a hand in the horrors com- 
mitted daily by Le Loutre with his Indians. What is not a wicked 
priest capable of doing ? He clothed in an officer's regimentals an 
Indian named Cope, and laying an ambuscade of Indians near to 
the Fort, he sent Cope to it, waving a white handkerchief in his 
hand, which was the usual sign for the admittance of the French 
into the English Fort, having affairs with the commander of the 
Post. Tlie Major of the Fort, a worthy man, and greatly beloved 
by all the French officers, taking Cope for a French officer, came 
out with his usual politeness to receive him. But he no sooner 
appeared than the Indians in ambush fired at him and killed 
him. All the French officers had the greatest horror and indig- 
nation at Le Loutre's barbarous actions ; and, I dare say, if the 
Court of France had known them, they would have been very 
far from approving them ; but he had so ingratiated himself with 
the Marquis de la Galissonniere that it became a crime to write 
against him. It is needless to explain further Le Loutre's execra- 
ble conduct. Cruelty and inhumanity has ever been sacerdotal 
from all ages." 

On comparing Pichon's narrative with Parkman's, it 
is easy to see that the one is the offspring of the other. 
We have Parkman clothed in Pichon's regimentals with 
some additional trimmings drawn from his imagination. 
On one point Parkman has been imprudent. By yield- 
ing to the temptation of quoting Pichon's ipsissima 
verba: " Wliat is not a wicked priest capable of doing?" 
he has furnished us with indisputable proof that the 
officer on whom he relied was none other than Pichon, 
and that Pichon himself was also his only authority for 
referring to " the French officers " in general and to 
xneir supposed indignation at Le Loutre. Was it pos- 
sible to doubt that Le Loutre was the real culprit, when 



282 CORNWALLIS'S ACCOUNT. 

Parkman was backed, apparently at least, by the French 
officers themselves ? " The French officers" says he, 
" did not hesitate to charge it on Le Loutre, for, says 
one of them, etc." 

There is much scientific work in all this, and the 
public, it is to be regretted, seems indulgent when 
smartly taken in. " Qui nescit dissimulare nescit 
regnare " is one of Machiavelli's sayings. The spirit 
that animated Pichon is manifest in the closing sen- 
tence : " Cruelty and inhumanity has ever been sacer- 
dotal from all ages" The hypocritical traitor thus 
aimed at flattering the prejudices of those whom he was 
writing for and increasing his chances of reward. Let us 
note, by the way, that Edward Howe was neither major 
nor commander of the fort, as Pichon calls him. 

Cornwallis, writing to the Duke of Bedford less than 
-a month after the murder, says : 

" I have now an affair of more extraordinary a nature to inform 
you of. Captain Howe was employed on the expedition to Beau- 
bassin as knowing the Country well, and being better acquainted 
both with the Indians and inhabitants, and, poor man, fancied he 
knew the French better, and personally those villains de la Corne 
and Le Loutre. His whole aim and study was to try a peace with 
the Indians and to get our prisoners out of their hands. For 
which purpose, he had frequent conferences with Le Loutre and 
the French officers under a flag of truce. La Corne * sent, one 
day, a flag of truce by a French officer to the water side of a small 
river that parts his people from our troops. Captain Howe and the 
officer held a parley for some time across the river. Howe Juxd no 
sooner taken leave of the officer, than a party that lay perdue fired 
a volley at him and shot him through the heart." 

Cornwallis's account is, clearly, very different from 
the Pichon-Parkman one. True, Cornwallis speaks dis- 

* De la Corne was commanding officer in those parts. 



vallieee's story. 283 

paragingly of the French, and especially of De la Corne 
and Le Loutre in connection with this murder. It is 
clear that he entertained suspicions of complicity, but 
it is equally clear that his suspicions are of a vague, 
general character. Other accounts there are which 
Parkman knew of, since he refers to them at the foot of 
the page. PreVost, intendant-commissary (commissaire- 
ordonnateur) at Louisburg, says distinctly that Howe 
had been forewarned by Le Loutre himself of the risk 
he ran by trusting too much to the Indians, and that 
it was owing to his own imprudence, and for not having 
followed Le Loutre's advice, that he was killed. 

"Mr. Howe," says Prevost ..." having long an- 
noyed the Indians, took it into his head to risk it again, 
notwithstanding the warnings of Abbe Le Loutre and even 
of the Indians themselves. He came, with a white flag, 
opposite one of them, and the Indian, having a red flag, 
fired his gun at him and stretched him dead." * 

The Abbe Maillard seems to confirm PreVost's testi- 
mony. " If that man did not wish to perish in this 
way, he ought to have carefully avoided any meeting 
with the Micmacs. He had been warned to that effect 
shortly before this fate befell him." 

Another version is from M. de la Valliere, an officer 
who was then at Fort Beausdjour and who kept a journal 
of local events from September 19, 1750 to July 28, 
1751 ; therefore, to all appearances, a man well able to 
form a correct opinion. 

He thus related Howe's death : 



* Two years later this same Prevost, writing to the Minister, said : " I 
have learnt that the man named Cope, a bad Miemac who has always been 
uncertain in his behavior and suspected by both nations, has made several 
journeys to the English settlements in Acadia, and that he has ended by 
signing at Halifax a sort of treaty." 



284 valliere's story. 

" About the 15th of October, the Indians, who had 
observed and had been informed that Mr. Howe, com- 
missary of the English troops, often came to walk on 
the river bank, where he had already had conferences 
with the officers and missionaries, in order to speak to 
the inhabitants and persuade them, by making many 
promises, to come over to the English side, went dur- 
ing the night into ambush with some Acadians behind 
a levee that runs along the river ; and, at about eight 
o'clock in the morning, Stephen Batard went with a 
white flag opposite on the other side of the river. The 
Indian, after putting a few questions to Mr. Howe, 
threw down his flag and gave the signal to his men, 
who fired immediately on Mr. Howe and wounded him 
mortally." 

These are the only authorities I know ; Parkman 
mentions another in a note, " Les Memoires sur le 
Canada," which, he says, declares that Le Loutre was 
present. So it does, but it does not accuse him of com- 
plicity in the murder, evil-minded though its author al- 
ways is against the priests.* Now, whosoever weighs 
and compares these different accounts cannot help think- 
ing that Parkman's view, expressed with so much assur- 
ance and as though it was the only one, is by far the most 
improbable. I felt a lively personal interest in ascertain- 
ing the truth, and yet I am now far from inclined to ad- 
vance a positive opinion in favor of any view : in fact, 
no one could do so with the diverse and conflicting 
testimonies which we possess. 



* This anonymous writer, often quoted by Parkman, is so inaccurate in 
all that concerns Acadian affairs that it is better to ignore him. His ver- 
sion of Howe's murder is a new one and evidently absurd in more than 
one point. We should bear in mind that the author must have resided in 
Quebec or Montreal, as his book treats chiefly of Canadian affairs. 



PROBABLE EXPLANATION. 285 

Although I have not yet solved the problem, I will, 
however, hesitatingly hazard an explanation. Howe, as 
may have been gathered from Cornwallis's letter, had 
been sent to this post with a view to concluding a 
treaty with the Indians and to withdrawing from their 
hands the prisoners they held. Having been there 
some weeks, if not some months, he had already had 
several conferences with the Indians on the banks of the 
little river that was the border-line between them. 
Though he had hitherto been unsuccessful, he still 
persisted in his efforts. He also had frequent inter- 
views in the same place with Le Loutre and the French 
officers. My view is, that, on this occasion, Howe went 
to the usual place to meet an officer, who was perhaps 
accompanied by Le Loutre; that Cope, chief of one 
Indian tribe, Le Batard, chief of another, and some 
other savages, were in ambush along the levee, watch- 
ing for an interview between Howe and the French 
officers in order to carry out their purpose; that, di- 
rectly after the French officer and Le Loutre had left, at 
the end of the interview, and before Howe had with- 
drawn, the Indians waved a flag as a signal that they 
wished to have a parley. This interpretation has, at 
least, the merit of reconciling otherwise irreconcilable 
differences in the various accounts. Pichon says Howe 
went down to the river bank to meet an Indian dressed 
as an officer. This is scarcely possible, as Cornwallis, 
who was not likely to be mistaken about a fact which 
he could verify, says that " Howe and the officer held a 
parley for some time across the river." " Howe had no 
sooner taken leave of the officer than a party that lay 
perdue, etc." The Indians had to make haste in order 
not to let Howe escape ; consequently, the French 



286 CONJURING WITH WITNESSES. 

officer and Le Loutre, if indeed the latter was present, 
cannot have been far off. Provost pretends that the 
Indian who killed Howe was Cope ; La Valliere accuses 
Stephen Le Batard ; perhaps both of them had a hand 
in it. 

Cornwallis makes it clear that Howe had a conference 
with a genuine officer, that he held for some time a parley 
with him, that when their parley was over they took 
leave of each other. It could not have been so if that 
man had been an Indian in an officer's regimentals, as 
the fraud would surely have been detected at once ; and 
this is made clearer by Cornwallis's further statement 
that it was after taking leave of the French officer that 
44 a party that lay perdue fired a volley." The absurd story 
of an Indian clothed in an officer's regimentals is not al- 
luded to by any other than Pichon, and is, inferentially, 
contradicted by Cornwallis. Moreover, according to 
Cornwallis, that officer was sent by De la Come himself, 
so that, if there was an ambush by others than Indians, 
we should have to connect with it the commander of the 
French post and the officer who held the parley. Thus, 
Parkman, who, for these particulars, had the testimony 
of the English governor about facts part of which he had 
been able to verify and control, has preferred to accept 
in all details the fanciful and absurd story of Pichon, 
for no other motive, it seems, than the better to connect 
Le Loutre with this murder. 

To sum up in a few words : Parkman's proof of Le 
Loutre's complicity in the murder of Howe has no other 
foundation than the testimony of Pichon, of Pichon who 
then, and for the two subsequent years, lived at Louis- 
burg. Directly, inferentially or in essential details, he 
was contradicted by Maillard, PreVost, La Valliere and 






CONJURING WITH WITNESSES. 287 

Comwallis, that is, by a distinguished priest, two of- 
ficers of high rank and one governor. The odds were 
thus very heavy against the version Parkman sought to 
foist on the public, and few even of the most artful and 
unscrupulous writers would have faced such odds. 
Parkman, however, did. He was bound to get Pichon 
admitted and to give him a solid backing. Audacity is 
an insatiable craving which every success develops more 
and more. Parkman had succeeded so well in recom- 
mending the " Memoires sur le Canada" thanks to his 
little trick of division by which this witness suspected of 
partiality and irreligion is made to reappear incog, under 
the veil of " a Catholic contemporary," that he thought 
he could adopt similar tactics in Pichon's case ; only he 
must make them more elaborate to fit the higher impor- 
tance of this new accusation. His first step was to give 
Pichon an air of respectability by speaking of him, with- 
out naming him, as " a French officer." His next was 
to make use of this officer as a voucher that all the 
French officers held the same opinion. But now Park- 
man was confronted with a more serious difficulty. 
What was to be done about Maillard, PreVost, La Val- 
li£re and Comwallis ? Must he reproduce the substance 
of their version, or should he ignore them completely ? 
Neither of these extreme courses suited him ; he sought 
and found a third alternative. He ingeniously con- 
trived to put their names at the foot of the page with 
an unimportant remark about each of them, so worded, 
however, as to create the impression that they had not 
taken a different view of the matter, but that the little 
they had said tended to corroborate his "French 
officer." 

So with nothing, or something worse than nothing in 



288 MALICE AS A FINE ART. 

his favor, and with an overwhelming proof against his 
charges, Parkman has constructed crushing evidence 
against Le Loutre. He has so twisted and disfigured 
every authority as to make it appear that Le Loutre was 
accused and condemned on all sides : by " a French 
officer," " all the French officers," * by PreVost, Mail- 
lard, La Valliere, Cornwallis, and " Les M6moires sur le 
Canada." 

Thus, Parkman has given an honorable character to 
the worst accusations against Le Loutre, particularly to 
that which implicated him in a murder. After that, he 
had no doubt people would believe whatever he chose 
to advance against him. 

With such methods you can prove anything. Give 
Parkman a blackmailing letter from the veriest black- 
guard, and, if not closely looked after, he might bring 
about the conviction and electrocution of the President 
of the United States. Have we not a right to apply 
Pichon's virtuous indignation to Parkman and exclaim : 
" What is not a wicked story-teller capable of doing?" 

Let us not forget that the first use made of Pichon 
is about Le Loutre ; that, subsequently, he quotes him 
no less than fifteen or twenty times in five different dis- 
guises. He could safely divulge the name and charac- 
ter of Pichon when once he had extracted from him all 
his venom against Le Loutre, and when the divulging 
thereof did not remove the euphemism under cover of 
which he had administered his poison, f 

It may be very difficult to get a correct idea of the 
details of Howe's death ; but I refuse to believe that an 

* It is Pichon who says that the French officers accused Le Loutre. 

f Pichon is introduced as " a French Officer " in Parkman's book at page 
118, in the fourth chapter ; and it is not till page 243, in the eighth chap- 
ter, that his name and his vile business are revealed. 



LE LOUTRE'S COMPLICITY IMPOSSIBLE. 289 

officer or a priest, great as may have been their preju- 
dices or their fanaticism, can have had the smallest share 
in a crime of this sort, when they had nothing to gain 
or more to lose than to gain by even an indirect partici- 
pation in it. Barbarians alone could have conceived 
and executed such a crime. 

I do not believe that suspicions were then entertained 
at Halifax of Le Loutre's complicity in the murder ; 
though, if they were, these suspicions would lead, as a 
natural consequence, to the further supposition that he 
was capable of any villainy. But if, in fact, according to 
the affirmations of PreVost and Maillard, Le Loutre had 
really warned Howe of the danger he ran, we are con- 
fronted no longer with a crime, nor with the suspicion 
thereof, but with a praiseworthy action that exhibits Le 
Loutre in a less unlikely character and one far more in 
keeping with his past devotedness as a missionary. 

In order to elucidate this mysterious affair, I have, as 
I usually do in such matters, tried to fathom the mo- 
tives of the actors therein. I find that, though Le 
Loutre may have been jealous of Howe's influence with 
the Acadians, this jealousy is far from sufficient to 
implicate him in this murder. My first reason is that, 
without convincing evidence, no one can be warranted 
in making a monster of a man who had sacrificed all the 
comforts of life to the salvation of his soul and to the 
higher interests of religion. Secondly, this crime would 
be altogether at variance with what we already know of 
him. Thirdly, it were impossible to suppose him short- 
sighted or blind enough not to have foreseen the disas- 
trous and inevitable consequences of such a deed for 
him and for his dearest interests. Fourthly, to connect 

Le Loutre with this crime seems necessarily to imply 
19 



290 LE LOUTRE'S COMPLICITY IMPOSSIBLE. 

the complicity of certain French officers, in particular of 
the Commandant De la Corne, and thus charge them 
with the same perverseness and blindness. Now we 
have the clearest proofs that these officers had excellent 
reason to be jealous, and were indeed jealous, of Le 
Loutre's influence and of his share in the conduct of 
military and civil operations. Moreover, we know that 
Howe was held in high esteem by these same French 
officers. Therefore, I infer, they cannot have conspired 
with Le Loutre against Howe. 

What, then, can have been the motive of the Indian 
assassins? I do not know. Written proofs are want- 
ing, as they are wanting in so many other chapters of 
this history, where clearly-defined facts are the excep- 
tion. Though the Indians may have had many a 
long-standing grudge to wipe out, they probably had no 
more valid excuse than the harm Howe was doing them 
by his zeal for the service of England. 

However, we are justified in supposing that Le 
Loutre, by his overstrained ardor and his violent dia- 
tribes, may have, indirectly and unconsciously, influ- 
enced to some extent the conduct of the murderous 
Indians. For many years he had been fanning the 
flames of fanaticism ; and to the savage mind the 
logical and practical consequence might have been the 
removal of the man who personified all that made against 
their nation, against France and Catholicism. This is 
the conclusion I am inclined to arrive at, in virtue, not 
of documentary evidence, but of arguments based on 
the study of human motives and the teachings of his- 
tory. 

Seeing that Parkman undoubtedly aimed at imparting 
a flavor to his narrative by implicating a priest in this 



LEGERDEMAIN NOT ANALYSIS. 291 

murder, he might have attained his object in a less 
sensational fashion but more plausibly, had he used the 
method I have adopted. This method, albeit necessary, 
he seldom follows. For him, as all his works show, 
history is merely a clever game of legerdemain, a hunt 
after anecdotes, a salmagundi of items picked up every- 
where without much regard to their origin or their 
value. He has no misgivings, he cuts the toughest 
Gordian knots with a few swift strokes of the pen, with 
a few admirabty balanced sentences which give the 
reader no inkling of the tremendous difficulties involved. 
Small wonder that he should thus deport himself ; 
analysis would shackle his dainty feet, would over- 
weight his style ; analysis is a painful process, which 
suits the sincere writer alone ; analysis is the weapon of 
him only who, seeking in history nothing but the truth, 
is not afraid to place the reader in a position to judge by 
himself of the facts at issue, and of the value of con- 
flicting testimony. Hence it is that Parkman, even if 
he had the necessary penetration, seldom sifts and 
analyzes evidence in such a way that the public may 
judge of his power of analysis. 

The facts that form the basis of the foregoing chapter 
are important, not only in that they afford full play to 
Parkman's peculiar methods, but also in their bearing 
on the subsequent history of the Acadians. Howe's 
death had much to do with the sequel of that sad 
history. By increasing the irritation of the English 
against the French it made the deportation possible. 1 

1 Since writing the above, I see that Parkman, in his last work, says, 
without explanation, that Le Loutre's complicity is not proved. " Quan- 
tum mutatus ab illo ! " Whence comes this change? What has happened? 
Nothing, except that Casgrainhas taken exception to his inferences, telling 
him that La Valliere, Prevost, Maillard, whom he cites, draw inferences 
very different from his and from what he leads the reader to infer; but 



292 GOING BEHIND THE RETURNS. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Intrigues of the French to urge the Indians to hostilities — Letter 
of La Jonquiere to the Minister — Indian warfare against the 
English — Hostilities between English and French — Le Loutre's 
methods against the Acadians — He is blamed by the Bishop of 
Quebec — Divers acts of cruelty against the Indians of Maine. 

I am proceeding with a sincere desire to discover the 
share of blame which belongs to each of the conflict- 
ing parties ; endeavoring to be just to the English as 
well as to the French, to the Home Government as well 
as to the local authorities, to the Acadians as well as to 
the priests. The materials for this history are so scanty, 
there are so many gaps to fill, that here, more than else- 
where, it becomes imperative to enter successively into 
the minds of the interested parties in order to detect 
the motives that impelled them to adopt one course 
rather than another. One must become, so to speak, by 
turns, a missionary, an Acadian peasant, an Englishman 
and a Frenchman, a Catholic and a Protestant ; one 
must divest oneself of preconceived notions, narrow or 
broaden one's views, penetrate into the prejudices of all. 
This is not always easy, nor equally easy for every one. 
My life has been spent amidst these opposite elements, 

Casgrain has produced no new proof. True, Casgrain has not discovered 
the great secret ; but he may be on the right scent, and he must therefore 
be immediately turned away from it by some concession ; else either he or 
somebody else might make further Researches and possibly ferret out 
Parkman's artful dodges and his dear Pichon. Matters had reached a 
point where Parkman might say, as children do when they play Hunt the 
SUpper : " It's getting very hot ! " 



INDIAN ALLIES. 293 

and, owing to exceptional circumstances and perhaps 
also to my turn of mind, I experience no difficulty in 
seeing with the eyes of others. If some writers have 
examined more documents than I have, perhaps no one 
has more honestly and deeply pondered the true inward- 
ness of the facts. 

Under different circumstances it is possible, by a mere 
compilation of documents connected by such explana- 
tions as are necessary for understanding the narrative, to 
compose a history that would be a pretty faithful picture 
of events ; in this case, such a compilation would be 
altogether insufficient, Not only are materials few, not 
only have the most important been suppressed, but 
those which remain are generally but the story as 
written by one side, in stiff official letters calculated to 
show merely the deceptive surface facts, merely what it 
pleased the writer to say. Motives, intentions, secret 
thoughts, all the inner springs of action, which are 
revealed in private letters, secret journals, documents 
from the other side, are completely wanting here. 

The circumstances did not favor an international code 
of honor equal to that which obtained among the civil- 
ized nations of Europe. The interference of Indian 
allies in war made peace factitious, war doubly cruel 
and hatred incredibly intense. Each nation had its 
savage allies, sometimes fighting on their own account, 
oftener egged on by one or the other of the two nations. 
Even when they spontaneously took to the warpath, 
they were suspected of doing so at the suggestion of 
interested whites. An act of hostility committed on 
the great lakes was avenged later on in New England 
or in Nova Scotia, and vice versa. 

Numerically, France was much inferior to her rival. 



294 INDIAN ALLIES. 

The assistance of the Indians was, therefore, a necessary 
condition of her existence ; and so we find that France 
always more assiduously and more successfully culti- 
vated their friendship. Her most powerful lever was 
the missionary. Whilst this spurner of creature-com- 
forts plunged into the forest to follow the Indians in 
their expeditions for the chase, for barter or for war, 
sharing their privations, associating with their daily 
life and their interests, the Protestant minister, bound 
to civilization by family ties, could not expose his loved 
ones to the trials of such a life and to the contact of 
those barbarians ; yet this was the best means of evangel- 
izing them and ultimately of winning them to civiliza- 
tion. We can readily understand how, for the mission- 
ary, the interests of religion were closely linked with 
those of his nation, since his efforts became or might 
become useless as soon as the territory passed into 
English hands. It was, assuredly, very natural that 
the missionary should preserve his love for France; 
but Parkman, in viewing him as too exclusively domi- 
nated by this sentiment, does not realize the intimate 
connection which the missionary saw between his 
religion and his country. 

Those vast and fertile regions that had no other 
masters than a few savage tribes were coveted by both 
nations, and had to be occupied as early as possible, so 
that the rival nation might not step in beforehand. 
However, there were no exact and definite titles to 
legal possession accepted and recognized as such ; much 
stress must also be laid on the friendship of the Indians, 
often an uncertain and easily-broken bond, often threat- 
ened by underhand seduction. Thus it happened that 
there was no distinct line of demarcation beyond which 



DEEDS OF SHAME. 295 

honor could not safely go. In Europe the most insig- 
nificant actions were done before the eyes of all, honor 
was held in check by public opinion, ever such a 
mighty power. Here, the blackest crimes frequently 
were without echo, or were lost in the solitude of the 
forest. We need not, then, be surprised that rival 
interests should have prompted many acts of duplicity, 
and that both nations are responsible for deeds the 
memory of which may well make them blush. Indul- 
gence is, therefore, opportune ; still, there are misdeeds 
so blameworthy that history cannot ignore them ; and, 
if such blame is deserved by France, it applies par- 
ticularly, I believe, to her conduct in this part of 
the country, and at the very period upon which we are 
entering. 

The eight years' peace, from 1748 to 1756, in America, 
was nothing but a series of continued hostilities, getting 
worse each year. Macaulay says : " The peace was, 
as regards Europe, but a truce ; it was not even a truce 
in other quarters of the globe." 

Cornwallis's proclamation, ordering the Acadians to 
take an unrestricted oath, was, for Acadia, the cause or 
the pretext, at first, of secret hostilities, and ultimately 
of open war. 

The enmity of the Indians for the English had always 
been carefully fostered ; it was the counterpoise which 
equalized the advantages of the two nations in this part 
of the continent. We shall presently see, as Parkman 
rightly says, that nothing was neglected by the French 
to urge them to hostilities, whether with a view to dis- 
courage the colonists introduced by Cornwallis or to 
force the Acadians to cross the frontier. A few days 
after this proclamation, De la Jonqui&re wrote to the 



296 USING THE INDIANS. 

Minister of Colonies that Cornwallis, on his arrival, had 
issued a proclamation requiring from the Acadians an 
unrestricted oath ; that this proclamation had filled them 
with alarm ; and that he himself had given instructions 
to Captain de Boish^bert to favor their departure. He 
informed him of the conferences he had had with the 
Indians : 

11 1 did not care to give them any advice upon the matter, and 
confined myself to a promise that I would on no account abandon 
them ; and 1 have provided for supplying them with everything, 
whether arms, ammunition or other necessaries. It is to be de- 
sired that these savages should succeed in thwarting the designs of 
the English, and even their settlement at Halifax. They are bent 
on doing so ; and if they can carry out their plans, it is certain 
that they will give the English great trouble, and so harass them 
that they will be a great obstacle in their path. Tliese Savages are 
to act alone ; neither soldier nor French inhabitant is to join them ; 
everything will be done of their own motion, and without showing 
that I had any knowledge of the matter. Tins is very esssntial; 
therefore, I have written to the Sieur de Boishebert to observe 
great prudence in his measures, and to act very secretly, in order 
that the English may not perceive that we are providing for the 
needs of the said Savages. It will be the missionaries who will 
manage all the negotiations, and direct the movements of tlie Sav- 
ages, ivho are in excellent hands, as Father Germain and AbM Le 
Loutre are very capable of making the most of them, and using 
them to the greatest advantage for our interests. Tliey will man- 
age their intrigue in such a way as not to appear in it." 

He went on to say that he hoped thus to prevent the 
English from making any new settlement, to remove 
the Acadians from them, and to discourage them by con- 
tinual attacks of Indians, so as to make them give up 
their pretensions to the territories of the King of 
France. 

Nothing can be clearer. De la Jonquiere's sugges- 
tions, it appears, were approved by the French govern- 









USING THE INDIANS. 297 

ment. This approval is both contemptible and inexcu- 
sable. This document is a stigma on France's honor, 
and is doubly so, as it directly involves the Home 
Authorities. True, hostilities had been committed 
shortly before in these parts by the English on the 
French and Indians; it would be no easy matter to 
ascertain satisfactorily which side was the first aggressor 
and on whom the blame, or most of it, rests ; yet, as 
this letter shows that peace might have been restored 
without these instigations, France's guilt cannot be ex- 
cused nor diminished to any great extent. The same 
reprobation may be applied, though with less force, to 
the participation of Le Loutre and Germain ; history is 
justified in charging them with the vexations and atroc- 
ities committed by the Indians on the colonists of 
Halifax. However, in all fairness, I must once more 
direct attention to the fact that Fathers Germain and Le 
Loutre were missionaries among the Indians of French 
Acadia (New Brunswick), and not among those of the 
Peninsula (Nova Scotia). 

I have already mentioned how Le Loutre failed to 
make the Acadians of Grand Pre* and of all the Mines 
Basin emigrate ; I have also indicated the means he 
used toward those who dwelt at Beaubassin near the 
frontier. For fuller details as to these latter, I will 
quote Parkman, not because of the absolute accuracy of 
his facts, for his information is mainly derived from the 
questionable sources examined in the previous chapter, 
but because, in the absence of all other information, his 
account may be received as containing a substratum of 
truth, now that the reader is in a position to estimate 
the value of his authorities. 

At page 116 of his work, " Montcalm and Wolfe," 



298 BURNING HOUSES. 

Parkman says : " Resolved that the people of Beau- 
bassin should not live under English influence, Le 
Loutre with his own hand (?) set fire to the parish 
church and this compelled the Acadians to cross to the 
French side of the river." 

Speaking of the inhabitants of Cobequid (now Truro), 
he says : " They began to move their baggage only 
when the savages compelled them." 

When Lawrence landed with his men to found Fort 
Lawrence on the frontier, there still remained, in the 
neighborhood of Beaubassin village, which had been de- 
stroyed some months before, and, on the English side, 
quite a number of houses and barns that had not been 
burned. " Le Loutre's Indians," says Parkman, " now 
threatened to plunder and kill the inhabitants if they 
did not take arms against the English. Few complied, 
and, the greater part fled to the woods. On this the 
Indians and their Acadian allies set the houses and 
barns on fire, and laid waste the whole district, leaving 
the inhabitants no choice but to seek food and shelter 
with the French." 

At page 120 Parkman says : " Le Loutre, fearing that 
they would return to their lands and submit to the 
English, sent some of them to isle St. Jean. They re- 
fused to go, but he compelled them at last, by threaten- 
ing the Indians to pillage them, carrying off their 
wives and children, and even kill them before their 
eyes(?)" 

After making allowances for the exaggerations of 
details, I am not far from believing that these events 
really occurred pretty nearly as they are described. It 
must be said, however, in extenuation of Le Loutre's 
conduct, that he acted on the understanding that the 



LE LOUTRE REPRIMANDED. 299 

Acadians would be fully indemnified for all their 
losses, and, if these promises were partially frustrated, 
the fault lies at the door of Intendant Bigot, Vergor 
and their accomplices, who kept, for their own benefit, 
the funds set apart for the relief of the Acadian ref- 
ugees. 

Men who, like Le Loutre, allow themselves to be 
carried away by religious fanaticism, almost always be- 
come dangerous as soon as they quit the sphere of re- 
ligion to come down into the arena of worldly conflicts. 
He should have ceased pestering the Acadians to move, 
as soon as he met with decided resistance on their part ; 
and, since he was so vigorously opposed by those who 
lived near the frontier, he had nothing to hope for from 
those whose remoteness placed them beyond his reach. 
His machinations could only serve to aggravate a situa- 
tion that was already painful enough. Although the 
Acadians, as we shall see, never did anything that could 
justify either their deportation or any severity even re- 
motely comparable to that, yet, when they weigh all the 
causes of their exile, they cannot shut their eyes to the 
unforgotten fact that the conduct of France toward 
them was impolitic, selfish and cruel, that it quickened 
latent prejudices and antipathy against them, and paved 
the way for the misfortunes that ensued. And here, as 
Parkman, in quoting Pichon, states facts of a public 
nature, which could not be altogether unknown to the 
Halifax authorities, and which are partly sustained by, 
or in line with, De la Jonquiere's letter, I would find no 
fault, provided he had given out the name of his author- 
ity, objectionable though it be. 

The following letter of the Bishop of Quebec to Le 
Loutre shows what the prelate thought of his behavior : 



300 LE LOUTRE REPRIMANDED. 

" You have at last, my dear sir, got into the very trouble which 
I foresaw, and which I predicted long ago. 

" The refugees could not fail to get into misery sooner or later, 
and to charge you with being the cause of their misfortunes. The 
Court thought it necessary to facilitate their departure from their 
lands, but it is not the concern of our profession. It was my 
opinion that we should neither say anything against the course 
pursued, nor anything to induce it. I reminded you a long time 
ago, that a priest ought not to meddle with temporal affairs, and 
that, if he did so, he would always create enemies and cause his 
people to be discontented. 

" I am now persuaded that the General and all France will not 
approve of the return of the refugees to their lands, and the Eng- 
lish Government must endeavour to attract them. . . But, is it 
right for you to refuse the sacraments, to threaten that they shall 
be deprived of the services of a priest, and that the savages shall 
treat them as enemies ? I wish them conscientiously to abandon 
the lands they possessed under English rule ; but can it be said 
that they cannot conscientiously return to them ? " 

The above letter shows the vast difference between a 
distinguished prelate and a fiery abbe* of Le Loutre's 
stamp. 

In the absence of clear documentary evidence to prove 
which side provoked the hostilities, prior to De la Jon- 
quiere's letter, we have to guide ourselves by the cir- 
cumstances of the time, which show that the French 
had every motive to hinder the English from colonizing 
Nova Scotia, whereas the latter were just as much inter- 
ested, for the moment, in avoiding all aggressions. 

The first attack made by the Indians occurred August 
19, 1749, about six weeks after Cornwallis's arrival at 
Halifax. They captured twenty persons who were cut- 
ting hay at Canso, and brought them as prisoners to 
Louisburg, where they were freed on the intervention of 
the French commandant : " The Indians pretend they 
did this," says Cornwallis, "because a New England 






CANSO AND BEATJBASSIN RAIDS. 301 

man who had ransomed his vessel of them for £100, 
and left his son hostage, never returned to them, though 
Colonel Hopson advanced him the money. I have 
written to Boston to have this examined and have the 
master, one Ellingwood, taken up." 

In September, Cornwallis again informs us, the In- 
dians, under pretext of barter, attacked two vessels at 
Beaubassin ; three Englishmen and seven Indians were 
killed. On the 30th of this same month, four men 
who were working in a mill were killed by the Indians, 
and another made prisoner. The next day, the Council 
of Halifax passed a resolution ordering all the com- 
manders " to annoy, distress, and destroy the Indians 
everywhere. That a premium of ten guineas be prom- 
ised for every Indian killed or taken prisoner." 

While throwing most of the blame on the French, I 
think it only right to refer to the counter-accusations 
consigned in the French archives or elsewhere. Invari- 
ably the archives of one or the other nation contain 
nothing but accusations against the opposing nation ; 
so that history based on the exclusive testimony of one 
of them, as has been more especially the case for Acadia, 
cannot but be altogether one-sided and incorrect. 

" Everybody knows," wrote to the French Court the 
Comte de Raymond, commander at Louisburg, " that, 
since the year of the last peace (1748), there has hardly 
been a month in which the English have not sent armed 
corsairs to visit the coasts of this colony." 

" Since the end of the year 1749," says he elsewhere, 
" a date at which the English began to come in crowds 
to Chibouctou (Halifax) to settle there, the French 
have not been able to navigate in safety along the east 
coast, and even in the neighborhood of the island of 



302 COMPLAINTS OF THE FRENCH. 

Canso on account of the frequent threats made 

there. They have continued to capture vessels of all 
kinds, to lay hands on whatever they contained, and, at 
the same time, to seize on the mariners themselves." 

The Comte de Raymond supported these accusations 
by a number of facts related with the most circumstan- 
tial and precise details. He mentioned, among other 
tilings, that the English had seized, in this very year 
1749, in a port of Cape Breton, three boats together 
with their crews, and had released them only after 
taking all the codfish the boats contained. 

" They attacked and captured French boats plying 
between Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, ill- 
used the crews, laid hands on their cargoes and some- 
times on their boats." 

On October 16, 1750, a brigantine belonging to the 
French navy, the Saint Francis, laden with the pro- 
visions, clothing and arms destined to the French posts 
of the St. John River, was captured and looted. 

In the Lettres et MSmoires sur le Cap Breton (Pichori) 
we read : 

" Towards the end of July, 1749, when the news of 
the truce between the two crowns had not yet reached 
New France, the Indians had taken some of the English 
prisoners on the island of Newfoundland ; but these 
prisoners, having informed them of the truce signed the 
previous year at Aix-la-Chapelle, they believed them on 
their mere word, treated them as brothers, released them 
from their bonds ; but, in spite of so much kind treatment, 
these perfidious guests massacred, during the night, 
twenty-five Indians, men and women." 

" Towards the end of the month of December, 1744," 
says another document, " Mr. Ganon (?), commanding 



COMPLAINTS OF THE FRENCH. 303 

a detachment of English troops .... found, in a lonely 
place, near Annapolis, two huts of Micmac Indians. In 
these huts were five women and three children, two of 
the women being pregnant ; but, despite the feelings of 
humanity that such persons were likely to excite, the 
English not only plundered and burned these huts, but 
also massacred the five women and the three children. 
It was even found that the pregnant women had been 
disembowelled." 

I have no intention of drawing a parallel between the 
misdeeds of the two nations, so as to decide which of 
them deserves more blame for the cruelty practised by 
the savages in the wars between the two nations or in 
those which they waged against the Indians. Owing to 
the circumstances of the time, the historian must shut 
his eyes, provided the authorities took reasonable pains 
to repress cruelty. A distinction must also be made 
between the conduct of subalterns and that of superior 
officers. But the atrocious crimes perpetrated by the 
whites themselves against the Indians are inexcusable, 
and, in particular, those which are traceable to the 
authorities of Massachusetts against the Indians of 
Maine far exceed all other atrocities committed else- 
where, even those of the Indians themselves. I do not 
think that the French ever were guilty of anything that 
can remotely be compared to what I am about to relate. 
These facts are told in the same way by many historians ; 
but I take them from Hannay, whom I have at hand : 

" The Eastern Indians renewed the war in June, 1689, by the 
destruction of Dover, N. H., where Major Waldron and twenty-two 
others were killed and twenty-nine taken captive. Waldron 
richly deserved his fate, for more than twelve years before he had 
been guilty of a base act of treachery towards the Indians, which 



304 WALDRON AND CHURCH. 

has doubtless since caused the spilling of much innocent blood. 
In 1676, Waldron, then commander of the militia at Dover, had 
made peace with four hundred Indians, and they were encamped 
near his house. Two companies of soldiers soon after arrived at 
Dover, and by their aid Waldron contrived a scheme to make the 
Indians prisoners. He proposed to the savages to have a review 
and sham fight after the English fashion, the militia arid soldiers 
to form one party and the Indians another. After manoeuvring 
for some time, Waldron induced the Indians to fire the first volley, 
and the instant this was done they were surrounded by the soldiers, 
and the whole of them made prisoners. Some of them were set 
at liberty, but over two hundred were taken to Boston, where 
seven or eight were hanged and the rest sold into slavery. It 
was to avenge this despicable act that Waldron was slain in 1689." 

Again, page 238 : 

" One hundred and fifty Penobscot Indians made an attack on 
York in February, 1692. The place was surprised and all the inhab- 
itants who were unable to escape killed or captured. About 
seventy-five were slain. Several aged women and children were 
released and allowed to go to the garrisoned houses, to requite the 
English for sparing the lives of some of the Indian women and 
children at Pejepscot a year and a half before. This proves that 
the savages were not wholly destitute of gratitude, and that they 
had rather a nice sense of honor, for, it is worthy of note that at 
Pejepscot Church did not spare all the squaws and children, but 
only the wives of two chiefs, their children and two or three old 
squaws. All the other Indian women and the children, of which 
there was a large number, this squaw-killer Church slew in cold 
blood." 

Elsewhere, again : 

1 ' During the winter the English were guilty of an act of treacher- 
ous folly, unparalleled anywhere. Stoughton, Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, sent a message to the Indians, telling them to bring in 
their prisoners for exchange. They brought five English prisoners 
to Pemaquid for exchange. Captain Chubb persuaded them to 
deliver them up, promising to send to Boston at once for those 
desired in return. A conference was proposed inside the Fort, 
nine Indians and nine English only to be present without arms ; 



CHUBB — KASLE. 305 

the nine English had pistols concealed in their bosoms. They were 
surrounded by a party of soldiers and all killed except two who 
escaped. Three of the Indians were chiefs of great renown. It 
is unnecessary to enlarge upon the character of this scandalous 
transaction, further than to observe that it was a crime not only 
against the Indians, but also against the English settlers, who, in 
the end, were the greatest sufferers by all such treacherous acts. 
Such inexcusable crimes against faith and honesty as those of 
Waldron and Chubb, made it impossible for the Indians to believe 
that the English would keep any truce with them ; for those 
instances of English treachery were told at the camp fires of every 
tribe from Cape Breton to Lake Superior, and they were repaid 
in kind in after years." 

It will not be amiss to insert here the treatment of 
Father Rasle, who had been a missionary on the Kenne- 
bec River for forty years. 

" This Romanist," says Smith, * " was highly accomplished, and 
his life literally one long martyrdom. Being a correspondent and 
friend of the Governor of Canada, the English believed he might 
be the instigator of hostilities of the Indians. Their village was 
taken by surprise ; Father Ralle, in hopes of diverting the atten- 
tion of the enemy to himself and screen his beloved flock by his 
voluntary offering of his own life, fell together with seven Indians 
who had rushed out to defend him with their bodies. When the 
.pursuit had ceased, the Indians returned to find their missionary 
dead at the foot of the village cross, his body perforated with balls, 
his scalp taken, his skull broken with blows of hatchet, his mouth 
filled with mud, the bones of his legs broken and otherwise man- 
gled. The death of Ralle caused great rejoicings in Massachusetts, 
and when Harmon, who was senior in command, carried the 
scalps of his victims to Boston (this string of bloody trophies in- 
cluding the scalps of women and children and an aged priest), he 
was received as if he had been some great general, fresh from the 
field of victory, f 

* Philip H. Smith : Acadia— A Lost Chapter in American History, p. 119. 

t This episode is related otherwise by Parkman. I have not tried to 
get at the most correct version ; I give this one as I find it without vouch- 
ing for its exactness. However, this is the version adopted by all the his- 
torians I have seen. Murdoch attributes these cruelties and others of the 
same kind to the peculiar notions of the Puritans. " We must bear in 

20 



306 SCALPS OF MEN AND WOMEN. 

" A certain Captain Lovewell," says Hannay, " emu- 
lous of Harmon's fame as a taker of scalps, and with 
patriotism fired by the large bounty offered by Massa- 
chusetts for that kind of article, gathered a band of 
volunteers and commenced scalp-hunting. They killed 
one Indian for whose scalp the company received £100. 
He started next year with forty men, surprised the 
Indians whose scalps netted £1,000. In a subsequent 
fight he lost his own scalp, as did thirty-four of his 
men." 

These barbarities were not, as is clear, perpetrated by 
irresponsible individuals acting on their own impulse, 
but by superior officers yielding to the stimulus of a 
government bounty. In the war which had just come 
to an end (1744-1748), this very government of Massa- 
chusetts had offered a bounty of £100 for the scalp of 
each male Indian above twelve years of age, and of £50 
for the scalp of each woman or child. I am aware that, 
in certain circumstances, the French also offered 
bounties to the Indians for the scalps of their enemies, 
but I have yet to learn of a single instance where this 
bounty was applicable to either women or children ; 
and — an essential difference — this hateful work, instead 
of being performed by whites, as was continually done 
in Massachusetts, was left to the savages. Moreover, 
during the last fifty years of the French regime in 
America the manners of the Indians had become more 
gentle, most probably thanks to the missionaries, so much 
so, indeed, that the usual custom was to make prisoners 
who were afterwards released on ransom. 

mind," says he, " that the doctrines of the New England Puritans at that 
period were deeply tinged with ideas drawn from the ancient Jewish his- 
tory, in the Old Testament, whence they also drew their maxims of reprisals 
and retaliation." 



SCALPS OF MEN AND WOMEN. 30T 

No doubt the barbarous outrages of the Indians upon 
defenceless colonists put the latter into a state of great 
exasperation. They honestly thought that the only 
means of putting a stop to those crimes was to make use 
of reprisals in kind. This was a fatal blunder from 
every point of view ; it was provoking a repetition of 
the same crimes, perpetuating hatred, delaying and 
spoiling the work of civilizing the savage. The least 
that white men should have done would have been to 
exhibit to the Indians a higher civilization by respecting 
pledges, by sparing the lives of women and children. 
These Indians were as amenable to gratitude as to 
revenge ; and never would the French have acquired 
the immemorial ascendency they enjoyed over them,, 
had they not respected their rights and abstained from 
such barbarities as I have related above. All the 
Indians of New Brunswick and Maine : Malecites, Abe- 
nakis, Medoctetes, constituted, together with the Mic- 
macs of Acadia, one great family united by the bonds 
of kindred and friendship. An injury done to one of 
these tribes rankled for a long time in the breasts of all 
the others as a personal wrong. Under such conditions 
it is not to be wondered at if the Indians of Acadia were 
always the mortal enemies of the English. 



308 CLAIMING SCALP BOUNTY. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Treaty of peace concluded between the English and the Indians oi 
Acadia during the autumn of 1752 — An infamous deed com- 
mitted by Conner and Grace, two inhabitants of Halifax, puts 
an end to the treaty — Revenge of the Indians — Captivity of 
Anthony Casteel, messenger of the Council — His journal — Mis- 
takes of historians with regard to these two incidents. 

Whether it was that the French were ashamed of 
their own conduct, or that they began to see it was im- 
politic, or that they met with more apathy on the part 
of the Indians than they had expected, or, perhaps, for 
all these motives together; at all events, we have every 
reason to believe that they soon gave up the odious 
plans they had formed against the English settlements ; 
this, at least, is the inference to be drawn from the 
general trend of events. 

In November, 1752, the preliminaries of a treaty of 
peace between the governor and the Micmac chiefs were 
arranged at Halifax. Three years before, a similar 
peace had been signed with the Indians of the St. John 
River, and until now this peace had not been broken. 
However, this peace was so short that Le Loutre and the 
French are almost invariably accused of having pre- 
vented the treaty from being concluded. This might 
be considered probable if we had not manifest evidence 
of the contrary. 

The act which gave rise to this accusation was the 
following : In April, 1753, two inhabitants of Halifax, 



AN ATROCIOUS CRIME. 309 

John Conner and James Grace, came before the council 
and presented seven Indian scalps for which they 
claimed the usual bounty. They related how that, with 
John Poor and Michael Hagarthy, they were wrecked 
on the coast ; that their companions were killed and 
scalped ; that, after several days of captivity, they took 
advantage of the absence of the Indians to butcher the 
woman and the child that had been left with them ; and 
that, on the return of these Indians, they had fallen upon 
them, killing and scalping them. 

The tale was improbable. It was hard to explain 
why they had been left alone with a woman and a child, 
and still more difficult to account for their not having 
run away instead of waiting for the return of the In- 
dians. This was, doubtless, the impression produced on 
the council, which ordered : " that John Conner and 
James Grace do give security for their appearance at 
the next general court, in case any complaint should be 
brought against them by the Indians." 

" This is the substance of their story," said the sur- 
veyor Morris, afterward judge of the province, writing 
to Cornwallis, who was then in England ; " but, as the 
Indians complained, a little after the sailing of Conner's 
schooner, that one exactly answering her description 
put into Jedore, where these Indians had their stores, 
and robbed them of forty barrels of provisions given 
them by the Government, 'tis supposed that these men 
might afterwards have been apprehended by some of 
this tribe whom they killed as they describe. 

" If this be the case, His a very unhappy accident at 
this juncture, and time only can discover what its con- 
sequences will be. The chiefs of every tribe in the 



310 AN ATROCIOUS CRIME. 

Peninsula had sent in messages of friendship, and, I 
believe, would have signed articles of peace this spring, 
if this accident does not prevent them." 

The Reverend Andrew Brown, who comments on 
what Morris called an unhappy accident, adds these 
remarks : 

" Thus far Mr. Morris ; but the facts were still blacker than he 
suspected. After having robbed the Indian store-houses, Conner 
and the crew of his unfortunate schooner were obliged to encounter 
the fury of the deep. They suffered shipwreck ; the two survi- 
vors, Conner and Grace, were found by the Indians drenched 
with water and destitute of everything, were taken home, cher- 
ished, and kindly entertained, yet watched their opportunity, 
and to procure the price of scalps, murdered their benefactors, 
and came to Halifax to claim the wages of their atrocious deed. 

"The Indians, as may well be supposed, were exasperated 
beyond measure at this act of ingratitude and murder. (Revenge 
boils keenly in their bosoms, and their teeth were set on edge.) 
To procure immediate retaliation they sent some of their warriors 
to Halifax, to complain of the difficulty they found to keep their 
provisions safe during the fishing season, and to request that the 
Governor would send a small vessel to bring their families and 
their stores to Halifax. In compliance with this desire, the vessel 
and crew mentioned in the Journal of Anthony Casteel were 
engaged, tho' several suspected from the first that it was an 
Indian feint to spill blood." 

The ruse the Indians had adopted for the sake of 
revenge met with complete success. A schooner was 
put at their disposal in order to bring back their families 
to Halifax. The crew consisted of Anthony Casteel, 
messenger of the council, of Captain Bannerman, of a 
Mr. Cleveland, and of four sailors. All were butchered 
and scalped except Casteel. How he was saved is ex- 
plained minutely in the journal he kept, which, on his 
return, was sworn to and transmitted by the Governor 
to the Secretary of State. It is a thrilling tale and 



casteel's narrative. 311 

shows the base treachery of which Conner and Grace 
had been guilty against the Indians. 

Casteel, after the massacre of his companions, was 
dragged from Jedore, not far from Halifax, to Bay 
Verte. Near this place they reached a camp of almost 
five hundred Indians, who made a circle around him. 
After deliberating on his fate, an old man, the father-in- 
law of the chief whose prisoner Casteel was, declared to 
him that his life would be spared on payment of a 
ransom of three hundred livres. " We were on the 
point of signing a lasting peace," said the old man ; " we 
had for a long time abstained from any act of hostility 
against your countrymen ; but now that the English 
have begun, we will not stop. We had sheltered two 
shipwrecked men, who, the day before, had stolen most 
of our provisions ; they were almost lifeless ; we had 
brought them into our camp, where we fed and took 
care of them ; we were soon to take them to Halifax 
when, taking advantage of our absence, they massacred 
during the night two men, three women and two chil- 
dren, one an infant at the breast. In return for such a 
deed our vengeance would not be satisfied even if we 
had killed as many English as their victims had hairs 
on their heads. We have hitherto always spared 
women when we could ; henceforth, we will not even 
spare the infant in its mother's womb." Then he tore 
up before Casteel the paper that bore the preliminaries 
of the treaty. 

These facts, Casteel goes on to say, were confirmed 
by other persons. The culprits were Conner and Grace, 
who, some weeks before, had brought to Halifax seven 
scalps, for which they claimed the bounty. 

The chief who held Casteel prisoner stopped at the 



312 casteel's narrative. 

house of an Acadian named Jacques Vigneau dit Mau- 
rice. There he met some Indians and a French officer. 
One of them asked him what ransom he wanted for his 
prisoner. " Three hundred livres" said Casteel's mas- 
ter. " I will give them to you," said another Indian, 
"my father was hanged at Boston." He rushed at 
Casteel to stab him ; but the French officer, who had 
been watching the Indian's movement, gave Casteel a 
great shove that stretched him on his back and saved 
him from the blow. The sons of James Vigneau carried 
him into a little room, where he swooned away. When 
he came to himself, Vigneau's wife offered him a glass 
of wine and asked him if he was wounded. He said 
no. She then went to a chest, opened it and took from 
it fifty pieces of six livres forming the three hundred livres 
of his ransom. Jacques Vigneau called Casteel's mas- 
ter and counted out the money to him saying : " This 
man belongs to me ; let none of you come here to 
molest him, or I will break his bones." " I then 
asked Vigneau," says Casteel, " if he would take my 
note, he answered no ; that he believed I was an honest 
man, but, if he was never to receive one farthing, that 
should not hinder him saving the English to the utmost 
of his power, even to the last shirt on his back. The 
next day Vigneau gave me a shirt, a few other articles, 
a six-livres piece, and we parted." 

I have dwelt at some length upon these two incidents, 
the Conner and Grace butchery and Casteel's advent- 
ures, because all the historians that mention them point 
to the murder of Casteel's companions as to an infamous 
crime traceable to French instigation. Some of them, 
literally believing the declaration of Conner and Grace, 
count this as another crime referable to the same source, 



THE FRENCH UNJUSTLY ACCUSED. 313 

although the companions of these two miscreants really 
perished when their vessel was wrecked. 

Parkman, as usual, must needs fall into the worst 
possible view against the French. It is amusing to see 
with what a sagacious air of superior penetration he 
strives to entangle the facts and circumstances so as to 
implicate the French. He harks back five years in order 
to weave a chain of circumstantial evidence that jus- 
tifies him in concluding, or in insinuating, that the 
preliminaries of the treaty in the previous autumn were 
only a stratagem invented by the French. 

It is true that the Compiler has not summarized the 
contents of Casteel's journal as satisfactorily as could 
have been wished. However, there is enough in what 
he has given, provided the summary of Casteel's journal 
be compared with Conner's declaration, to show that 
the incidents of the one are connected with those of the 
other. There might still remain some uncertainty; 
but, if Parkman was in doubt, he ought either not to 
have touched the matter or to have pushed his researches 
farther. Instead of a cruel crime committed by Indians 
at the instigation of the French, we find an act of excus- 
able hostility done by these Indians to avenge a shameful 
crime committed against their tribe by Conner and 
Grace.* 

Though the responsibility of this deed rests only on 
two unimportant individuals and not on the govern- 
ment, yet it is none the less certain that the peace, 
which was about to be definitively signed, was broken for 
a long time to come on account of this crime, and that 



* About this time, the crew of a vessel hailing from Boston had treach- 
erously killed, near Cape Sable, two Indian girls and an Indian boy, who 
had been invited on board their ship. 



314 THE governor's strange conduct. 

deeds of blood were the outcome of it, deeds that exas- 
perated the authorities and largely contributed to shape 
the unfortunate events that followed. It would seem 
that the Governor's duty was, as soon as he had discov- 
ered the atrocious conduct of Conner and Grace, to 
confer with the Indians, repudiate this crime, and give 
them satisfaction in some way or other. Nothing of the 
sort appears. Those haughty soldiers had too much 
contempt for the savage to treat him as a human being. 
We do not even hear of any punishment inflicted on 
the monsters, Conner and Grace. One thing I cannot 
understand is the strange conduct of the Government 
signing the preliminaries of a treaty of peace with the 
Indians in the autumn, and yet keeping up, during the 
ensuing winter and spring, the bounty on Indian scalps. 

In a letter of July 23rd, 1753, the Governor, com- 
municating to the Lords of Trade the sworn deposition 
of Casteel, mentions the facts of the case. This letter 
is in the volume of the Archives ; but the Compiler has 
thought proper to suppress all that it contains on this 
subject, just as he has completely omitted another 
letter of the 29th relating to this affair. Whatever may 
have been the Compiler's motives, his omissions have 
had the effect of leaving the question somewhat mud- 
dled ; hence it is that some historians have eluded it, 
and others have fallen into an erroneous interpretation 
of it. 

Mistakes of this nature, shifting the crimes of one 
party on to the shoulders of another, are not calculated 
to inspire confidence in history. The events related 
above contain the key to an important situation. By 
throwing on the Indians or the French the odium that 
really belonged to English subjects, the entire sequence 



MERCILESS OFFICERS. 315 

of facts in this obscure epoch becomes very seriously 
distorted. Had not Casteel escaped the fate of his com- 
panions, or had he not kept a journal of his adventures, 
we should never have been able to get at the truth of 
this story ; for, even with his sworn declaration before 
them, men have found means to palm off as the truth 
what is only a shameless counterfeit. All history, and 
particularly the history of Acadia, is perforce honey- 
combed with similar lies, which one writer passes on 
to another, and which ultimately crystallize into indis- 
putable facts. 

The most barbarous have not always been the Indians. 
It would be hard to find any Indian misdeeds that can 
be compared to the duplicity and atrocity of the crimes 
attributed to Stoughton, Church, Waldron, Chubb, Love- 
well and Harmon. And these were not irresponsible 
individuals like Grace and Conner ; one of them was a 
governor, another a colonel, a third a major, and the 
three others captains. It may truly be said that the 
government of Massachusetts is responsible for these 
horrors, since it tolerated or encouraged them by tempt- 
ing bounties for scalps of Indian men, squaws and 
children. 

In striking contrast with these colonial cruelties is the 
bearing of the Home Government toward the Indians. 
Had its counsels been heeded many misfortunes might 
have been averted. Such acts as I have just related 
could only perpetuate hatred and revenge. Twice was 
Cornwallis lectured by the Lords of Trade because he 
wished to wage against the Indians a merciless war : 

" As to your opinion of never hereafter making peace with the 
Indians and of totally extirpating them, we cannot but think that 
as the prosecution of such a design must be attended with acts of 



316 ENGLISH VERSUS FRENCH METHODS. 

great severity, it may prove full of dangerous consequences to th« 
safety of His Majesty's other colonies upon the continent, by fill- 
ing the minds of the bordering Indians with ideas of our cruelty 
and instigating them to a dangerous spirit of resentment/' 

In a subsequent letter the Lords of Trade, apparently 
dreading Cornwallis's impetuosity, renewed the same 
advice : " Gentler methods and offers of peace have 
more frequently prevailed with the Indians than the 
sword." 

These gentle methods do not seem to have been con- 
genial to the English national character ; and, though 
circumstances made it the evident interest of English- 
men to adopt these methods, they seldom have been 
able to count on the absolute fidelity of any Indian 
tribe. One would think there lies, deep down in the 
Anglo-Saxon, a rock-bed of roughness which the best 
instruments of civilization cannot smooth, just as in the 
Gaul there lurks a mercurial substratum of levity which 
no disasters can solidify. In spite of his defects, the 
Frenchman was much the more successful with the 
Indians ; he honestly strove to make the latter forget 
the difference between the pale-face and the red-man, 
whereas the Englishman ever sought to emphasize his 
own superiority. The former's first thought was, " How 
shall I win the Indian's heart ? " The latter's main 
question was, or seems to have been, " How shall I 
make that d d redskin respect me ? " and he pro- 
ceeded to enforce this respect by a dignified demeanor, 
if he was well-bred, or by surliness, if he was a cad. 
This scornful bearing led to brutality, and brutality led 
to that curious historical fact which Sir Charles Dilke 
chronicles when he says that the Anglo-Saxon is the 
only race that exterminates the savage. 



ENGLISH VERSUS FRENCH METHODS. 317 

Soon after the events recorded above it seemed likely 
that a treaty of peace would be made between the 
English and the Micmac Indians. Captain Hussey, 
commanding at Fort Lawrence, notified Le Loutre to 
bring with him, according to agreement, a delegation of 
Indians to confer about the preliminaries of a treaty. 
He received them, saj^s Le Loutre, with such disdainful 
haughtiness that the Indians, who had taken the trouble 
to come from a long distance, went back greatly of- 
fended. The negotiations were broken off. History is 
full of similar incidents. What disasters might have 
been averted had the advice of the Lords of Trade 
recommending gentle measures been followed ! Some- 
thing of the same kind occurred about this time, when 
General Braddock undertook his disastrous expedition 
to the Monongahela River. He received the Indians 
with such contemptuous stiffness that they all aban- 
doned him with the result we know. 



318 CORNWALLIS IMPROVES. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Peace-making — Peregrine Thomas Hopson succeeds Cornwallis in 
1752 — His conciliatory spirit — He inspires great confidence and 
secures happy results — After fifteen months his health obliges 
him to return to England. 

Le Loutre's efforts to make the Acadians emigrate 
were soon exhausted. He may have been disheartened 
by his failure ; he may even have changed his mind as 
to the advisability of such a course ; but probably what 
made him give up was especially the way the English 
thwarted him. 

On the other hand, there was no longer any talk at 
Halifax of requiring the oath from the Acadians, who, 
relying on the righteousness of their claim and on their 
experience of the past, must have believed that this 
silence was equivalent to a definitive return to the old 
state of affairs. This was a cruel illusion. Meanwhile, 
however, quiet was restored everywhere ; so much so, 
indeed, that, from 1750 to September, 1752, the date of 
Cornwallis's departure, hardly any mention is made of 
the Acadians in the despatches of the governor or in the 
deliberations of the council. The most important refer- 
ence to them is in a letter of Cornwallis to the Lords 
of Trade in September, 1751 : 

" There is a visible alteration in the behavior of the Acadians ; 
they have this year cultivated well their lands and have great 
crops, a quantity of corn to dispose of over and above what will 
serve their f amilies ; this will be of great service to this settlement 



AN ERA OF HUMANITY. 319 

at this critical juncture. Both as to the Acadians and Indians, 
it would be improper to send the Germans into that part of the 
country." 

Hitherto Cornwallis had several times suggested that 
Protestant colonists should be placed here and there 
among the Acadians, " in order to remove their preju- 
dices in favor of the Romish faith." But each time the 
Lords of Trade had rejected his suggestion ; and now 
Cornwallis seemed won over to their views. His atti- 
tude towards the Acadians appears to have notably 
altered. In September, 1750, he had applied for leave 
of absence, suggesting Lawrence as his substitute ; and 
yet we find Hopson succeeding Cornwallis at the latter's 
departure in 1752. In 1750 Cornwallis leaned to harsh 
measures, and in this policy Lawrence was the man to 
continue and improve upon his predecessor. Undoubt- 
edly, from 1750 to 1752, a great change had come over 
Cornwallis ; he seems to have realized that he had 
blundered, that harshness and stiffness raise up obstacles 
instead of removing them. Had harshness been the 
basis of his character, he never could have so materially 
altered his demeanor. Strongly imbued with military 
notions, having but an imperfect knowledge of the 
special status of the people under his jurisdiction, he 
had honestly thought that it was wise to act as he did 
on his arrival. He had the good sense to turn back 
from the error of his ways. However, the consequences 
of his first mistake were too disastrous to admit of 
complete reparation ; and, able and worthy though he 
may have been at bottom, the change came too late for 
a full development of his latent virtues. 

Peregrine Thomas Hopson, who succeeded Cornwallis, 
had been commander-in-chief at Louisburg, and, when 



320 HOPSON, COPE, AND LA LOUTKE. 

this fortress was surrendered to France, after the treaty 
of Aix-la-Chapelle, he, with the troops under his com- 
mand, joined Cornwallis at Halifax. I venture to say 
that Hopson shared with Mascarene the honor of being 
the most straightforward, humane and conciliating of all 
the governors of Acadia since the Treaty of Utrecht. 
His letters, orders and all his acts prove this assertion. 
Though Cornwallis left him a legacy of trouble, yet he 
managed, in a very short time, to make peace with 
every one. Despite an unfortunate event that hindered 
his liberty of action, he would probably have reconciled 
the Indians to English rule had not ill-health obliged 
him to resign after fifteen months of office. 

His kindly disposition led, only two months after his 
inauguration, to offers of peace from John Baptist Cope, 
the great chief of the Micmacs. An understanding was 
arrived at, and some weeks later a treaty of peace was 
concluded and signed between Cope and the govern- 
ment. Cope pledged himself to exert his influence to 
persuade all the Indians of his nation to make a final 
treaty the following spring. 

Was this peaceful issue due to the good reputation 
Hopson had already earned? Was this a bona fide 
pledge on the part of the Indians, and what share in it 
should we attribute to Le Loutre ? For this John Bap- 
tist Cope was, I believe, chief of the Indians in Le 
Loutre's mission. The latter could not but be aware of 
this step ; and if he really wielded over the Indians the 
power that is commonly attributed to him, this treaty, 
whether feigned or sincere, must have been, at least in 
part, his work. True, it was broken eight months later, 
but the motive, viz., the infamous crime of Conner and 
Grace, affords a full explanation of the rupture ; and for 



HOPSON PLEADS FOR THE ACADIANS. 321 

eight entire months the Indians observed the treaty 
faithfully. Now if, as seems probable, Le Loutre favored 
this treaty, the question naturally presents itself, why 
did he favor it ? The only reason I can see is the con- 
fidence inspired by Hopson's noble character and the 
sincerity of his dealings with the Acadians. This makes 
the inference probable that, had there been no violence 
nor arrogance on the part of Cornwallis, Le Loutre 
would have done nothing to force emigration upon the 
Acadians or to stir up the Indians to hostilities. Per- 
haps the very foundation of Fort Beause'jour had no 
other motive than resistance to the arbitrary proceed- 
ings of Cornwallis. 

On the 10th of December, 1753, soon after the de- 
parture of Cornwallis, Hopson wrote to the Lords of 
Trade : 

" I should be glad to have Your Lordship's opinion as early in 
the spring as possible, concerning the oath I am to tender to the 
Acadians, as directed by the 68th article of my instructions. 

"Mr. Cornwallis can thoroughly inform Your Lordships how 
difficult, if not impossible it may be, to force such a thing upon 
them, and what ill consequences may attend it. I believe he can 
likewise acquaint you that the inhabitants of Beaubassin — who 
had taken it before with General Philipps's conditions — made it a 
pretence to quit their allegiance and retire from their lands, 
though it was not otherwise offered to them than by issuing the 
King's Proclamation to that effect. 

" As they appear to be much better disposed than they have 
been, and hope will still amend, and, in a long course of time, 
become less scrupulous, I beg to know from Your Lordships in the 
spring how far His Majesty would approve my silence on this head 
till a more convenient opportunity. 

" Mr. Cornwallis can inform Your Lordships how useful and nec- 
essary these people are to us, how impossible it is to do without 
them, or to replace them even if we had other settlers to put in 
their places ; and, at the same time, how obstinate they have 
always been when the oath has been offered. 
21 



822 WORKINGS OF CONSCIENCE. 

It appears evident by this letter that Cornwallis had 
come round from his earliest impressions and shared 
Hopson's views as to the manner of treating the Aca- 
dians. How easy it is, on reading this letter, to feel 
that we are in the presence of a man in whom kindliness, 
gentleness, calmness and reflection predominate ! He 
neither can nor will blame his predecessor ; yet he none 
the less implies that there has been blundering, that time 
and tact will be needed to bring back the spirit of trust 
so rudely shaken, and to do away with the scruples 
aroused by exacting the oath. No stranger is he to the 
feelings of the Acadians ; he has put himself in their 
place ; he seems to experience their own sentiments. 
He has gone down into his own soul to listen there to 
the answer of his conscience, and has heard his own 
heart tell him that, were he in their place, he could not 
easily make up his mind to bear arms for strangers 
against his brothers, for enemies of his religion against 
his co-religionists, for people whose language he does 
not understand against those with whom he lias familiar 
intercourse ; hence he sees before him " a long course of 
time " before their scruples can be effaced. That phrase, 
" less scrupulous," shows that he has in very deed con- 
sulted his conscience and his own feelings. 

Cornwallis had perceived merely the material aspect 
of their situation. He had thought that attachment to 
their property was the great, the only motive of their 
actions ; it had seemed clear to him that all that was 
needed, to get the better of their sheer stubbornness, was 
resolutely to place them face to face with the cruel 
choice between abundance on the one hand and desti- 
tution on the other. But, when lie saw deputation after 
deputation unhesitatingly accepting destitution, begging 



NO EXCITEMENT. 323 

for leave to depart, he was quite upset ; he could make 
nothing out of such conduct ; either he himself is really 
moved or he wishes to move them by his words, but his 
emotion all turns on the enjoyment or the loss of their 
goods : u Your lands produce grain and nourish cattle 
sufficient for the whole colony. It is you who would 
have had the advantages for a long time. We flattered 
ourselves we would make you the happiest people in 
the world." 

Hopson's vision was clearer and more far-reaching ; he 
saw that conscientious motives threw all purely material 
interests into the shade, and therefore he implores the 
Lords of Trade not to oblige him to urge the question 
of the oath. " Mr. Cornwallis can inform you how use- 
ful and necessary these people are to us, how impossible 
it is to do without them, etc., etc." 

Could such a description apply to a turbulent and 
dangerous population, ripe for revolt? Clearly not. 
And yet the period we have just traversed has been more 
agitated than that which is to follow and which imme- 
diately precedes the deportation. We have reached 
1753, only two years before the terrible event. Ad- 
visedly do I use the word " agitated," for I intend to 
convince whoever is open to conviction, without hiding 
anything and without going beyond official documents, 
that nothing more serious than agitation occurred 
throughout the whole extent of the peninsula. And 
what did this agitation amount to ? Merely peaceful 
meetings of men who discussed the situation, simple 
peasants who weighed the pros and cons to decide upon 
the alternative imposed to them. This agitation, if 
indeed it deserves the name, lasted some months, at 
most one year, the first of Cornwallis's governorship. 



324 EVEN-HANDED JUSTICE. 

There is not the slightest sign that these meetings were 
seditious or even noisy ; quite the reverse. When they 
had decided to choose the alternative of leaving the 
country, they went directly to inform the Governor and 
to ask his permission. Before granting it, he obliged 
them to sow their fields ; without a murmur they did 
so ; they sowed what they believed would be reaped by 
others ; then they came back for the promised permis- 
sion ; again were they put off with wretched pretexts, 
again did they return to their homes without a murmur 
and remain perfectly quiet. In all this there is not the 
vestige of a single act of insubordination or even of re- 
sistance. And yet there were strong excuses for sedi- 
tion. Seeing that they had been kept in the country 
against their will, that a compromise had been made 
with them in 1730, they certainly had the right of carry- 
ing off their movable goods, which was an important 
consideration for them. To deprive them of this right 
was to cast them from plenty into beggary. And yet, 
without complaint, they yielded up this manifest right. 
Does not this submissiveness afford a safe standard by 
which to judge of their dispositions and of their subse- 
quent conduct ? 

Cornwallis had mapped out his plan of action before 
hearing them ; Hopson had taken pains to see and hear 
everything and consider the motives on which their 
claims were based. The following order, addressed to 
the commanders of Forts Vieux Logis (Grand Pre*, now 
Horton), and Edward (Pigiguit, now Windsor) by Hop- 
son, reveals the same kindly temper observed upon 
above : 

" You are to look on the Acadians in tlie same light with the rest 
of His Majesty's subjects, as to the protection of the laws and Gov- 



EVEN-HANDED JUSTICE. 325 

eminent, for which reason nothing is to be taken from them by 
force, or any price set upon their goods but what they themselves 
agree to ; and, if at any time they should obstinately refuse to com- 
ply with what His Majesty's service may require of them, you 
are not to redress yourself by military force, or in any unlawful 
manner, but to lay the case before the Governor and wait his 
orders thereon. You are to cause the following orders to be stuck 
up in the most public part of the Fort, both in English and 
French. 

" 1st. The provisions or any other commodities that the Acadians 
shall bring to the Fort to sell, are not to be taken from them at 
any fixed price, but to be paid for according to a free agreement 
made between them and the purchasers. 

2d. No officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier, shall pre- 
sume to insult or otherwise abuse any of the Acadians, who are 
upon all occasions to be treated as His Majesty's subjects, and to 
whom the laws of the country are open, to protect as well as to 
punish. 

" At the season of laying in fuel for the Fort, you are to signify 
to the Acadians by their deputies, that it is His Majesty's pleasure 
they lay in the quantity of wood that you require, and when they 
have complied, you are to give them certificates specifying what 
quantity they have furnished, which will entitle them to payment 
at Halifax." 

P. T. Hopson. 



This order was evidently intended to modify or com- 
pletely change previous orders ; else it would have been 
purposeless. It amounted to saying : Hitherto the 
Acadians have not been on the same footing as the rest 
of His Majesty's subjects; henceforth they shall be. 
You shall take nothing from them by force ; they shall 
have, like others, the privilege of making bargains for 
their produce ; and if you have reason to complain of 
them, you shall not employ force or any other illegal 
means. 

This order is just as eloquent a eulogy of Hopson's 
character as it is a powerful plea against Cornwallis. 



326 WHAT THIS ORDER IMPLIES. 

Thus, to all appearances, under the latter's government 
the treatment of the Acadians was one thing and that 
of His Majesty's other subjects was quite another. The 
pettiest sergeant could lay hands on Acadian produce, 
and any resistance might be punished as he chose with- 
out trial and without appeal. When one reflects on the 
tyranny inseparable from a military rule, even in our 
day, a tyranny sometimes bearable from superior offi- 
cers, but ever growing less endurable with lesser rank, 
one feels that the abuses of this power committed to 
subalterns must surely have been occasionally deplor- 
able. Yet, save in one instance under the ferocious 
Lawrence, there does not appear in the entire volume of 
the Archives a single case of recrimination on the part 
of the Acadians. 

Perhaps this order may have been inspired by the 
Lords of Trade ; but, as the Compiler does not publish 
so much as one of their letters to Hopson, we can only 
indulge in conjecture. However, this document is al- 
together in keeping with what we know of Hopson's 
character. 

On another occasion he gives us a new proof of his 
excellent sentiments. Among the emigrants landed at 
Halifax in the course of the autumn of 1752 were a 
certain number of decrepit old men and some orphans. 
Hopson complained to the Lords of Trade against such 
people being sent out to the colonies. In the course of 
his letter he cannot refrain from pitying the woes of 
these wretched beings : " I can assure you, my Lords, 
that I find this very shocking, for no mortal that has 
the least humanity can do otherwise than feel to the 
very heart at the sight of such a scene of misery." 

The character of Cornwallis does not stand out so 



ACADIANS FEAR INDIANS. 327 

clearly ; he may have been merely haughty and impe- 
rious ; but he shows no signs of commiseration. Hop- 
son, on the contrary, proves that he was not only full 
of equity and kindliness, but also that he had the gift 
of exquisite sympathy. All his acts are impressed with 
the same stamp; and so his administration, unfortu- 
nately too short, was fertile in happy results, and would 
have been still happier, had it not been for the dastardly 
crime of Conner and Grace which revived Indian hos- 
tilities for a time. 

If his administration had lasted some years, he would, 
most likely, have won from the Acadians, without any 
show of force, the unreserved oath required of them. 
He wrote, July 23rd 1753, to the Lords of Trade that 
he was privately informed that some Acadians who had 
left their lands had been delegated to confer about the 
situation with their fellow-countrymen dwelling on 
English territory ; 

11 That they went so far as to hold consultations whether they 
should not throw themselves under the protection of the English 
Government and become subjects to all intents and purposes ; but 
there arose a considerable objection to their taking this step, which 
was, that, as they lived on farms very remote from one another, and 
of course are not capable of resisting any kind of enemy, the French 
might send the Indians among them and distress them to such a 
degree, that they would not be able to remain on their farms." 

Was Hopson's information correct? Most probably, 
for what he relates is in full accordance with the well- 
known sentiments of the Acadians. No doubt t\\Qy had 
the greatest repugnance to the obligation of bearing 
arms against the French ; but the danger of Indian hos- 
tility was an equally important matter, and recurs in all 
their petitions whenever the question of the oath is 
raised. Cornwallis and afterward Lawrence laughed at 



328 REALIZING THE DANGER. 

this as at a foolish dread. But, as we have here their 
deliberations among themselves, unknown to the au- 
thorities and free from all outside pressure, it is easy to 
see that this danger was thought by them to be a serious 
one, since it alone stood in the way of their accepting 
the oath. 

Would they really have been molested by the Indians 
at the instigation of the French, if they had taken the 
oath ? I cannot say ; however, I am inclined to believe 
they would not. It was plainly in the French interest 
to perpetuate the status of neutrality ; they tried to 
make the Acadians believe that they would be molested 
by the Indians if they took the oath ; but, once that 
oath had become an accomplished fact, I am convinced 
that no hostility would have been manifested on the 
part of the French or Indians until the Acadians should 
actually have had to take up arms against either of 
them. From that moment, however, they would have 
been just as much exposed to the hostility of the In- 
dians, just as much their enemies, as were the English 
colonists, and then, as Hopson says, " As they live on 
farms very remote from one another, and of course not 
capable of resisting any kind of enemy," their position 
would have been untenable. The Acadians, deliberat- 
ing with a full sense of their grave interests at stake, 
and with long experience of the character of these In- 
dians, must be considered the best judges of what was 
likely to happen. Hopson seems to admit the force of 
their reasons ; unlike Cornwallis and Lawrence, his 
delicacy of feeling and sympathetic nature enabled him 
to enter into their views. 

Although there is nothing surprising in these delibera- 
tions of the Acadians, there is something that rather de- 



HOME, SWEET HOME ! 329 

tracts from the heroic aspect we are wont to view them 
in, since they now were ready to sacrifice their sentiments 
to their material interests. However, the residue of 
virtue in them is quite sufficient to endear them to their 
descendants. Heroic sacrifices are above nature ; hesi- 
tancy before making them is therefore not astonishing. 
More than a century had elapsed since their forefathers 
had opened out the country, several generations had sat 
by the same hearth. Whatever makes man, especially 
the husbandman, cherish life, whatever is dear to simple 
and honest hearts, they saw there in Acadia. It was 
their fatherland, the home of their ancestors, all the 
dearer to them because they had founded and created it. 
Each hill and dale, each glimpse of smiling landscape 
was sparkling with sweet memories. Those luxuriant 
meadows that fed their immense herds had been wrested 
from the sea by their own patient and painful toil. That 
church whither they came to kneel each Sunday had 
witnessed the only important events of their simple and 
peaceful lives. That graveyard held the remains of 
their kindred, and told in its inscriptions the story of 
those who had gone before. How their hearts must 
have been wrung at the mere thought of going away ! 
Going ! Why, that meant bidding an everlasting fare- 
well to home and country, to all they had and all they 
loved, quitting ease and plenty, the joys of the dear old 
fireside, for exile, separation and penury. 

Dear were the homes where they were born, 
Where slept their honored dead ; 
And rich and wide, on every side 
Their fruitful acres spread. 

On the 12th of September, 1753, Hopson read to his- 
council the following petition : 



330 PETITIONS. 

" The inhabitants of Grand Pre, River Canard, Pigiguit, etc., etc., 
etc. , take the liberty of presenting their very humble petition to 
Your Excellency, begging you to remove the difficulty which 
presents itself with respect to the missionaries who came here, by 
exempting them from the oath of allegiance which is required of 
them. 

"We hope, sir, that Your Excellency will be kind enough to 
grant that favor, inasmuch as, when we took the oath of Allegi- 
ance to His Britannic Majesty, we took it only on condition that 
we should be allowed the free exercise of our religion, and a suf- 
ficient number of ministers to perform the services. 

" It appears, sir, that we would be deprived of this last article, 
if the Government were to force them to take this oath, because 
the missionaries would certainly not remain among us on terms 
which they cannot agree to ; we should therefore see ourselves 
deprived of the main point granted to us. 

" Moreover, sir, when we submitted on the terms by which the 
practice of our religion is granted to us, it was by no means speci- 
fied that our missionaries should be obliged to take this oath. 
That is proved by the two missionaries who were present when we 
took the oath, and who were also entrusted with our affairs, with- 
out its being thought necessary to exact of them what is now re- 
quired of them. Notwithstanding all the expense we have in- 
curred in endeavoring to get them at Louisburg and even at 
Quebec, the difficulty of this oath prevents them from settling 
amongst us." 

Hopson granted this request on condition that the 
priests would conform to what was required of them in 
the regulations. It was Cornwallis who had, on the 
31st of July, 1749, issued an order obliging the priests 
to take the oath of allegiance. Here again Hopson 
gives a new proof of his liberality. 

On the 27th of the same September another petition 
was presented to him by those Acadians who had crossed 
the frontier three years before : 

"We, the inhabitants formerly settled at Beaubassin and vicinity, 
beg to inform you that the reason which caused us to leave our 
property was the new oath which His Excellency M. Cornwallis 






PETITIONS. 331 

wished to exact from us, desiring to break and revoke the one 
granted to us before. Having learnt since our departure, that if 
we were willing to return, we should have the same favors that 
were granted to us formerly, we are ready to accept it under these 
conditions. It is impossible for us to sign any other oatli on ac- 
count of the Indians, as we have stated on several occasions to 
His Excellency M. Cornwallis. If he had known better our cir- 
cumstances lie would have seen that it was impossible for us to sign 
any other than that which we have signed. 

1 i We hope that these articles will be granted to us by Your Ex- 
cellency, and even ratified by the Court of England, so that those 
who may succeed Your Excellency shall not make the pretext that 
His Excellency M. Cornwallis made in saying that M. Philipps 
had no authority from the Court of England for the oath which he 
granted us. 

"These being granted, we shall feel constrained to continue, 
and even increase our prayer for Your Excellency's health and 
prosperity." 

This proposed return of the voluntary exiles was 
another happy result of the good reputation Hopson 
had so soon earned. He granted all their requests 
except that which bore on a restriction to the oath, for 
he had not then the necessary authority for making this 
concession. 

It is worth noting that the petitioners, though always 
respectful, yet, being safe from restraint beyond the fron- 
tier, freely stigmatize as a pretext Cornwallis's proceed- 
ings towards them when revoking the agreement entered 
into with Philipps. The statement was true, but they 
would not have dared to express it in this way had they 
still been under English rule. Now, if their proposition 
was accepted, they wanted to be shown an express rati- 
fication from His Majesty. 

Here ends Hopson's career as Governor of Acadia. 
Ill, and perhaps disgusted with the part he had to play, 
he set sail for England, leaving the temporary adminis- 



332 PETITIONS. 

tration of the province to Lawrence, his first coun- 
cillor. Hopson carried away with him the esteem and 
the confidence of every one, after fifteen months of a 
firm and energetic administration, tempered by a spirit 
of justice and conciliation the like of which no other 
governor but Mascarene had shown. 



hopson's success. 333 






CHAPTER XX. 

General Considerations — England and France. 

It is painful to take leave of so worthy a man as 
Hopson, endowed with all the gifts that were called for 
by the perplexing condition of the province. He had 
governed it but one year and a quarter. In that short 
space, without violent orders, without threats, without 
apparent effort, by the mere persuasiveness of his kindly 
character and gentle ways, he had so far restored confi- 
dence as to induce the Acadians, of their own accord, to 
consider the question of an unrestricted oath. Had it 
not been for the dread of Indian hostility, the problem 
was in a fair way of solution. Those Acadians who 
had crossed the frontier, learning of the Governor's 
favorable dispositions, asked leave to return to their 
farms. 

During these fifteen months, in spite of Indian hos- 
tility aroused by an untimely crime, for which the 
Governor was in no way responsible, the greatest tran- 
quillity reigned in the Acadian settlements ; no sign of 
discontent, no act of insubordination is mentioned any- 
where. Is this not a fresh proof of the mild and peace- 
able character of the Acadians? A little kindness, 
some consideration for their difficult position, care not 
to alarm them by arbitrary or violent measures, which 
might make them fear interference with the free exer- 
cise of their religion : this was all, and yet this — if sup- 



834 PERSONAL GOVERNMENT. 

plemented by protection against Indian attacks — was 
enough to win from the Acadians the desired consent. 

This fact also proves to a demonstration that the heads 
of small absolute governments are alone responsible for 
the good or evil conduct of their subjects. Therefore 
it is strange that the majority of those who have written 
about this period of Acadian history have laid no stress 
at all on the respective characters of the various gov- 
ernors. Surely this point was here, more than in most 
countries, essential to a clear understanding of the facts. 
In a representative and responsible commonwealth it 
might have been overlooked as of slight importance ; 
but here was an absolute ruler, and what is more a sol- 
dier, whose will was law, whose wishes were commands. 
In such small despotic governments good rulers make 
good subjects. Let the governor be kind, humane, just, 
careful of the interests of all ; peace and contentment 
will flow from him as naturally as water from a spring. 
Let him be haughty, arbitrary or cruel ; mistrust, discord, 
uprisings perhaps, will be just as certain to follow. The 
mass of the people will have remained the same ; the 
governors only have changed. So true is this that the 
Home Office might have said to each of these governors : 
" Your administration has been marked by much trouble 
.and dissatisfaction ; therefore you have ruled unwisely ; " 
or, " During your governorship there have been no 
complaints, no unrest ; therefore you have been a wise 
ruler." 

The first thing, then, is to study the character of the 
governors. When this has once been carefully done, it 
is easy to pass judgment on the various events of their 
administration. Those who are unable or too careless 
to undertake this critical examination should refrain 



PERSONAL GOVERNMENT. 335 

from writing history. Though sometimes difficult, and 
especially so here, this inquiry is, nevertheless, possible, 
even without any other assistance than that supplied in 
the official documents. 

We cannot expect that an autocratic governor, when 
writing to his superiors, will make a clean breast of all he 
does and of all his plans. Far from it. He has every in- 
centive to show himself in the best light, to omit facts that 
tell seriously against himself, to defend himself against 
all comers, to throw the blame on all who thwart his de- 
signs or interfere with his tastes and caprices. And 
yet the attentive observer will almost always detect, 
either in the details or in the general tone of his cor- 
respondence, something that will reveal the undercur- 
rent of his character and his secret motives. 

Other historians of this period give us little or no in- 
sight into the character of the governors. They pass 
from Armstrong to Mascarene, from Mascarene to Corn- 
wallis, from Cornwallis to Hopson, from Hopson to 
Lawrence, as if there had occurred no material change, 
as if they were talking of an impersonal being, devoid 
of passions, interests, caprices, prejudices and defects. 
Yet, what a fathomless abyss yawns between a restless, 
whimsical spirit, like that of the ill-balanced Armstrong, 
by turns benevolent and tyrannical, and Mascarene, the 
cultured quiet gentleman, too particular perhaps on oc- 
casion, but ever paternal, firm and kind ! Again, what 
a striking contrast between Hopson, so upright, so con- 
ciliatory, so humane, and Lawrence so false, so despotic, 
so cruel ! 

After carefully weighing the whole matter, and with- 
out taking into account the possible adverse action of 
Hopson's successors, I feel convinced that the latter, 



336 WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 

in a few years, thanks to his kindliness, would have ob- 
tained from the Acadians an unrestricted oath. Their 
attachment to France was no doubt great, but not great 
enough to have been the sole motive, as Parkman and 
other writers make it, of their refusal. Indeed, the 
Acadians did not object to remain British subjects. 
What is more, I do not hesitate to say that, if the re- 
striction to the oath had been maintained, if further 
grants of land had been made to them in proportion to 
the growth of their population and to their needs, if 
they had had no cause to dread any interference with 
the free exercise of their religion, they would probably 
have preferred to see Acadia remain an English posses- 
sion in order that they might enjoy their neutrality. 
So long as the restriction subsisted, they were under the 
protection of a contract that gave them the undoubted 
right to leave the province if the stipulations of that 
contract were violated. To take an unrestricted oath 
was to forfeit this right. This they must have realized. 

To bear arms against the French was a thing they had 
a horror of. It seemed to them a monstrous crime 
against nature. Yet, such was their situation, so badly 
had they been treated by them, that they would perhaps, 
at this time, have sacrificed this question of sentiment, 
with the vague hope that they would never be actually 
called upon to fight the French. But, what they never 
would have sacrificed — and this was the most delicate 
question of all — was their religion, which they thought 
threatened and exposed to cureless ills by the rescinding 
of their neutrality contract, as it was indeed menaced 
by projects of which they had heard. 

Never was a people in such a desperately critical 
situation. Both French and English were too busy with 



NAUGHT BUT THE MIGHT OF EIGHT. 337 

the coming conflict to take serious thought of Acadian 
sentiment or to pity the woes of Acadia. This people, 
with its spirit of obedience, had no shield but the might 
of right. They were clearly free either to go if they 
refused the proposals of England or to accept them and 
remain. They artlessly thought that justice would 
finally prevail. The bold intriguer who succeeded 
Hopson was about cruelly to undeceive them. 

As to the insurmountable horror the Acadians had of 
bearing arms against the French, we French Canadians 
and Acadians by descent can thoroughly understand it 
and speak of it knowingly ; for we need only analyze 
our own feelings. 

We esteem England and her institutions the blessings 
of which we enjoy ; we admire her creative genius, her 
civilization, the wisdom of her statesmen, her far-seeing 
plans and the tenacity with which she carries them out. 
We have served her faithfully ; we are willing to do so 
again. We have had more liberty than French rule 
would have granted us. We are satisfied ; our lot is 
just about what we should have chosen ourselves. And 
yet, after 130 years of separation, we still love France 
as we did in 1763. Is ours an exceptional case, or 
would Englishmen feel as we do if they were in our 
place ? Human nature is pretty nearly the same every- 
where. But the question is not practical, since England 
— however the fact may be explained — has always man- 
aged to keep her conquests, and above all she has never 
been forced to abandon her children to the enemy. 

Our love for France seems to surprise our English fel- 
low-countrymen. They seem to think love of country 
is a chattel that can be transferred by order from place 

to place on a given date. Is this thoughtlessness or 

22 



338 LOVE FOR FRANCE. 

narrowness of mind ? Does it arise from the fact that 
Englishmen have never had any personal experience of 
a situation like ours ? Or are they less sensitive to the 
finer feelings ? 

Suppose, for a moment, that the Province of Quebec 
became once more a colony of France. Ask the English 
residing in Quebec if they would not feel scruples and 
an insurmountable horror at the thought of fiffhtinsr for 
France against England, against Ontario, even after a 
century of allegiance to France with the greatest pos- 
sible freedom. Their answer admits of no doubt; but, 
whatever it might be, this is our view : nothing could 
induce us to fight against France on foreign battlefields ; 
and if the refusal to do so were to entail upon us what 
the Acadians suffered, our hesitancy would be short, 
with this difference, however, that we would meet force 
with force. Cold-blooded reasoning has no place here ; 
we are not free to change the feelings which are in- 
grained in our nature. Should Englishmen act differ- 
ently in similar circumstances, the inference would be 
that their nature is diametrically opposed to ours. 

It is a matter of common observation that a French- 
man is swayed more by sentiment than by self-interest; 
that an Englishman, on the contauy, places self-interest 
alongside, and sometimes above sentiment. Some think 
this distinction is merely a difference of degrees and 
shades, not of natures. But may not the divergence be 
radical ? 

When the United States revolted against the mother 
country, the Acadians, unable to understand such con- 
duct, never called that struggle by any other name than 
the mad war. Still, the Americans, struggling for their 
money interests, were fighting for a principle ; whereas 



THE IMMIGRANT AND THE NATIVE. 339 

the Acadians could have invoked no principle to justify 
their taking up arms against France. 

An important distinction must be drawn between the 
immigrant and the man that claims the country he dwells 
in as the home of his forefathers. The immigrant's ob- 
ject is business ; unwittingly, perhaps, he has made up 
his mind beforehand to become, to all intents and pur- 
poses, a citizen of his new country. His children, if not 
himself, will claim hardly any other country than this 
new land of theirs. The native, on the other hand, is 
still more firmly rooted to the soil. His attitude to- 
wards the immigrant must be carefully considered. His 
traits of character, his customs, traditions, language, are 
all dear to him ; he means to cling to them as long as 
possible, he hopes, forever. His eye is on the immi- 
grant, who may easily excite his suspicions. If he finds 
out that the newcomer wants to dislodge him, he will 
never forget it ; he will ever attribute to him the same 
purpose, even in the latter's most harmless behavior. If 
the natives constitute a people, be it ever so small, they 
will close up their ranks and become more and more 
clannish ; and, should they come of a strong and manly 
race, whose past history is glorious, there is no knowing 
what complications may ensue. 

But if the incoming settler is prudent, gentle and 
generous ; if he lets the native know that, far from hav- 
ing any designs upon the autonomy and maintenance of 
the native nationality, he is anxious to keep up all the 
dearly loved traditions of the country, then a few gen- 
erations will suffice to win over the native element to 
the immigrant nation, fusion will take place without 
friction, without hitch, without bitter regrets. A con- 
trary course on the settler's part would leave the various 



340 LIVE AND LET LIVE. 

elements unharmonized after ten generations. The con- 
sequent need of prudence is especially great where the 
natives are French, because of the extreme delicacy of 
their feelings. 

In colonies conquered by England, the English set- 
tlers have almost always striven to implant their lan- 
guage and religious beliefs by stratagem or by force. 
They are striving to do so more or less even now. Their 
great object seems to be the formation of one solid, ho- 
mogeneous, despairingly monotonous mass of human 
beings instinct with the same ideas, the same tastes, the 
same feelings, as if this objective were indispensable to 
the security and progress of the country. They seem to 
forget that such ill-concealed strivings produce an effect 
exactly contrary to that which was expected, and tend 
to weaken those bonds of sympathy which a kindly ob- 
servance of the advice, " live and let live," would have 
helped to strengthen. Agreement in essentials is quite 
enough ; to aim at more is to secure less. 

France, with all her faults, has ever adopted a very dif- 
ferent line of conduct with much more satisfactory results. 
Her Brittany, after so many centuries, still speaks 
Breton, and is none the less very French. Alsace was 
German, spoke and still speaks German ; but, after two 
centuries of French rule, it groans in German under the 
German yoke, and sighs for return to France. Corsica, 
Nice, Savoy, treated as sisters, never uttered a murmur. 
The Arab, reconciled after a short resistance, dies for 
France on every field of battle, only too proud to be able 
to defend her flag. In spite of the errors and the levity 
of France, the nations she takes to her bosom become 
French in heart and mind. 

While France was urged on by her feelings, England 



WINSOME FKANCE. 341 

was stimulated by her interests. While the former 
aimed at assimilating her new subjects by respecting 
their customs and traditions, by making them sharers in 
the privileges and rights common to Frenchmen, by 
acts of kindness and urbanity, the latter strove to bring 
the colonists into line by sheer force or by craft. Had 
England added to her other gifts, so numerous and so 
imperial, the further gift of winsomeness, she would 
have been by this time doubly the mistress of the world ; 
the whole of this continent would now be hers ; Ireland 
would be to her a garland of honor instead of a thorn 
in her side. Alas ! It is with nations as with indi- 
viduals ; there are virtues that exclude one another. 

Throughout all her vicissitudes France always re- 
mained, politically and economically, one with her 
colonies. In war, in peace, in revolution ; under king, 
emperor or republic ; under Bourbons, Bonapartes or 
the Orleans citizen king ; with one tariff or another, 
the colonies submitted to every change without com- 
plaint. Never could England achieve such a result. 
Self-interest bars the way. 



342 AMBITIOUS AND HEARTLESS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Major Charles Lawrence, President of the Council, acts as ad- 
ministrator in expectation of Hopson's return — His character — 
His behavior towards the English colonists, the Germans and 
the Acadians, causes great dissatisfaction. 

The good feeling which Hopson had so happily 
restored was to disappear with him. He had made the 
governorship an easy task, if only his successor had had 
some of the virtues for which he himself was so emi- 
nently distinguished. Unfortunately, Lawrence, a first- 
rate soldier, a bold and active man, endowed with more 
than common intelligence, with that insinuating manner 
which so often is the intriguer's passport to success, 
was totally devoid of moral sense and utterly heartless. 
The be-all and end-all with him was his ambition, to 
which he had vowed all the resources of his lively mind. 
Imperious and cruel to his subordinates, he was supple 
and obsequious to his superiors. Of humble birth, 
having begun life as an apprentice to a house-painter, 
he had raised himself, while yet in the prime of life, to 
a position which a nobleman's son might have envied. 

A knowledge of the character of this man is very 
important : for on the judgment that shall be meted out 
to him depends, to a great extent, the judgment history 
must pass on the extraordinary act that marked his 
government. By the help of the public documents 
alone — his own documents, garbled as they are — anyone 



HALIGONIANS DESCRIBE LAWRENCE. 343 

can convince himself that my opinion of him is not too 
severe, since, throughout his whole career, one looks in 
vain for a single deed, and, in all the documents, for a 
single line that might hint at the semblance of any feel- 
ing of delicac}^ 

My search after further information to confirm or 
modify the impression produced upon me by the mere 
perusal of the volume of the Archives has been rewarded 
beyond my hopes ; and I can now safely assert that my 
first view fell far short of the reality. I will adduce 
some of my proofs in the course of the narrative ; for 
the present, I need only give a short extract from a long 
petition addressed by the citizens of Halifax in 1757 to 
a distinguished person in England whose name does 
not appear in the document supplied by Rev. Andrew 
Brown. 

"We are extremely obliged to you for your favor of the 3rd of 
July last and for your assiduity in our affairs. 

" We can assure you, sir, that we were almost without hopes of 
being considered as English subjects ; the haughty and disdainful 
behaviour of our governor to all our remonstrances, although 
tendered with the utmost submission, gave us much reason to 
think he was countenanced at Home 

" Your letter has revived the hopes of the inhabitants, and it 
has been great comfort to them to find an Englishman in England 
who has their unhappy state and condition at heart and commiser- 
ates their bondage under oppression and tyranny 

" These are all the friends Governor Lawrence has at Home, 
for on this side of the water he has none, either of the inhabitants 
or gentlemen of the army, who hold him in the utmost contempt, 
except those formerly mentioned to you his agents in oppres- 
sion. . . . 

" Perhaps you will be surprised to hear how this gentleman, 
who, some time ago, was only a painter's apprentice in London, 
should have advanced himself to such heights. We are obliged to 
confess that he has a good address, a great deal of low cunning, 
is a most consummate flatterer, has words full of the warmest ex- 



344 IMPUNITY. 

pression of an upright intention, though never intended, and with 
much art most solicitously courts all strangers whom he thinks can 
be of any service to him. By these and such arts has he risen to be 
what he is, and, elated with his success, is outrageously bent upon 
the destruction of every one that does not concur in his measures. 
" Another of the Governor's acts is to misrepresent and abuse 
all below him. He has publicly called his Council a pack of scoun- 
drels, the merchants a parcel of villains and bankrupts, and has 
represented at Home the whole as a people discontented and re- 
bellious:'* 

Such was, according to his fellow-countrymen, the 
man who conceived and carried out the deportation of 
the Acadians. If he painted the citizens of Halifax in 
such sombre colors, we need not wonder that the 
Acadians should have met with the same treatment. 
Nor should we wonder that he grievously oppressed 
them, since the oppression he exercised on those whom 
it was manifestly his interest to spare had driven them 
to extreme exasperation. 

His must have been a strangely cruel and perverse 
nature, since he could not curb it when his fellow-citi- 
zens might denounce him, overwhelm him with disgrace 
and ruin his prospects forever. But what had he to 
fear from the Acadians ? Would their complaints find 
an echo beyond the sea? Would these complaints even 
so much as reach England ? Clearly not. 

In dealing with a man of this stamp, would it be wise 
to take his own documents literally, garbled as they 
were purposely later on by himself and his accomplices, 
in order to justify an unjustifiable act ? Have we not 
at least the right of requiring from him well-proved 
facts and not unsupported assertions ? Now, as I am 
about to demonstrate, in all that part of the Archives 

* See Appendix, Vol. II. 



LITIGIOUS ACADIANS. 345 

which refers to Lawrence's administration, despite the 
one-sidedness displayed in the compilation of that 
volume, there is not one single instance, throughout the 
whole extent of the peninsula, of resistance that can be 
imputed to the Acadians, subjected though they were to 
intolerable provocation. 

The better to set this forth, I will review the docu- 
ments contained in the volume of the Archives, dwell- 
ing especially on those which contain accusations or 
complaints against the Acadians. 

At first, while Hopson, absent on leave for his health, 
was expected to return, Lawrence was merely Adminis- 
trator pro tern, of the province with the title of Presi- 
dent of the Council. By making himself measurably 
agreeable to the people under his care, and still more to 
the Lords of Trade, he could reasonably hope, provided 
his friends helped him at home and Hopson did not 
return, to be soon appointed governor. The nomination 
was slow in coming, but it came at last in the November 
of the following year. Up to this time his conduct 
seems to have been more guarded and perhaps also less 
harsh and more just. 

On December 5th, 1753, shortly after Hopson's depart- 
ure, he wrote to the Lords of Trade : 

" I take the earliest opportunity of doing myself the honour to 
write to Your Lordships, though hardly anything worth your notice 
has happened since Governor Hopson's departure. . . . 

" I come next to the Acadians who are tolerably quiet as to 
government matters, but exceedingly litigious amongst them- 
selves. As this spirit shows the value they set upon their posses- 
sions, it is so far a favorable circumstance. But, as there is no 
regular method of administering justice amongst them, they grow 
very uneasy at the decision of their disputes having been so long 
put off. To give them a hearing in our Courts of Law would be at- 
tended with insuperable difficulties ; their not having taken the 



346 LITIGIOUS ACADIANS. 

oath of allegiance is an absolute bar in our law to their holding any 
landed possessions, and Your Lordships may imagine how difficult 
it must be for the courts to give judgment in cases where the pro- 
prietors' claims are far from being ascertained, and where the dis- 
putes commonly relate to the bounds of lands that have never as 
yet been surveyed that I know of. 

"The French emissaries still continue to perplex them with dif- 
ficulties about their taking the oath of allegiance ; and though they 
have not been in the least pressed to it of late, yet they seem to 
think we only wait a convenient opportunity to force it upon them, 
as they every day magnify to themselves the difficulties they should 
lie under with the Indians if they take the oath, as well as the no- 
tion that it would subject them to bear arms." 

From the foregoing it appears that the Acadians 
were then " pretty quiet as to government matters, but 
exceedingly litigious amongst themselves." There is 
no reason to question this statement. Hopson had 
given them satisfaction on many important points, and, 
for a long time, there had been no talk of the oath ; 
this was all that was needed to ensure quiet. Nor 
have we any motive for doubting that there must have 
been difficulties among themselves anent the limits of 
their lands. More than twelve years before, Mascarene, 
in a letter I have produced elsewhere, had begged the 
Lords of Trade to alter the regulations excluding Catho- 
lics from Crown Land grants : 

" They have," said he, " divided and subdivided amongst their 
children the lands they were in possession of, as His Majesty's in- 
structions prescribe the grant of unappropriated lands to Protestant 
subjects only. ... If they are debarred from new possessions, they 
must live here miserably and consequently be troublesome, or they 
must withdraw to French colonies. If we give occasion of disgust 
to these people, the French in case of war will soon make an ad- 
vantage of it." 

Now we gather from Lawrence's letter that nothing 
had been done to right this crying wrong ; and yet the 



NO NEW GRANTS. 347 

sinister forecasts of Mascarene had not been realized, in 
other words, the Acadian s had neither given trouble to 
the government nor left the country because of a wrong 
which was in itself so grievous. In spite of this ? occa- 
sion of disgust," and of Shirley's plans more disgusting 
yet, the French had failed, during the late war, to shake 
their fidelity. How grave soever was this question of 
land grants, it was after all a matter of secondary im- 
portance to the Acadians in comparison to the oath and 
its consequences, and therefore was not made the subject 
of complaint to the authorities. Still it stands to reason 
that lands which had never been surveyed, and which 
had been divided and subdivided into small parcels 
during forty years, must have given rise to many dis- 
putes. And, as if to perpetuate this state of affairs, the 
settlement of the difficulty was indefinitely postponed 
and evaded, for the unavowed reason that the non- 
acceptance of the oath " was a bar in our law to their 
holding any landed possessions." This really meant, 
according to Lawrence's contention, that the Acadians 
had no legal right to the property which they enjoyed in 
virtue of the treaty of Utrecht. 

Up to 1730, in spite of the growth of the population, 
the Acadians did not address themselves to occupying 
new land nor to fixing the limits of the old, nor to 
making improvements, for the very obvious reason that 
their stay in the country was uncertain. After the 
agreement with Philipps, exempting them from military 
service, they thought their status was definitely settled, 
and then only did the land question assume importance 
in their eyes. As new grants were refused to them, 
they were forced to subdivide their old farms, and as 
these had never been properly surveyed, difficulties 



348 POSSESSION DECLARED UNLAWFUL. 

arose. Their disputes were submitted to the governor 
as early as 1731, when Armstrong said of them that 
they were litigious. The only way to settle the rival 
claims was to have the land surveyed ; but, in Law- 
rence's time, ten, fifteen, twenty and more years had 
elapsed since the disputed claims had been filed and 
placed in the governor's hands, and as yet nothing had 
been settled. No wonder Lawrence could say : " They 
grow uneasy at the decision of their disputes having 
been so long put off." Surely there was more than 
enough to make them uneasy. Lawrence lets out the 
secret of these endless delays when he says : " Their not 
having taken the oath of allegiance is an absolute bar 
in our law to their holding any landed possessions." 
This amounts to an avowal that, since 1730, the delay 
of surveys and settlement of claims was intentional, and 
was owing to the restrictive clause contained in the oath 
accepted by Governor Philipps. But, then, it becomes 
evident that the acceptance of this oath was only a 
deception, since it did not give the Acadians any right 
to their land. If, however, I should happen to have 
mistaken the drift of Lawrence's letter, there is at 
least this other inference to be drawn, that the gover- 
nors were but very little concerned to end the bickerings 
of the Acadians, or they might have readily done so by 
ordering the necessary surveys. 

To deprive them of new grants called for by the in- 
crease in their numbers was not enough of an injustice ; 
they must, furthermore, be refused all right to the par- 
cels of land which they held in virtue of a treaty. They 
were ordered to take an unrestricted oath, which would 
not even have given them any claim to new grants of 
land, these grants being reserved, by regulation, " to 



ACADIANS COMPARED TO AMERICANS. 349 

Protestant subjects only" Thus was being secretly 
prepared for them the fate of outcasts and pariahs. 
Perhaps their only resource now was to buy land from 
those Englishmen who had taken up, as I mentioned 
elsewhere, 100,000 acres around the settlements of 
Mines and Beaubassin. But it is easy to understand 
that the precariousness of their position was apt to make 
them mistrust such purchases. Besides, was there any 
security against future annulment of all their title- 
deeds in virtue of Lawrence's contention as to their 
being barred out by the law ? 

These few considerations give an inkling of Law- 
rence's deep-laid schemes. The sequel will show that 
it is well nigh impossible to find one of his state papers 
that is not a fresh masterpiece of duplicity. 

The Acadians must, forsooth, have been the most 
submissive and peace-loving people under the sun. 
" The lenity and the sweet of English rule," on which 
Parkman dilates, may apply reasonably enough to the 
Home Government, but assuredly not to the provincial 
administration. Had the New England colonists been 
in the same situation, they would long ago have raised 
the standard of revolt and broken every trammel, as in- 
deed they did a few years later to destroy abuses that 
were far less blameworthy and affirm rights that were 
far less important, for the sake of stamps and tea, when 
their language, their religion, their feelings, their lands 
were in no way threatened. Because the Acadians 
scorned rebellion, because they were too nobly obedient,, 
they were deported like cattle, they were hunted like 
wild beasts, while statues were raised in honor of suc- 
cessful rebels ; and, to crown their misfortune, they have 
to-day to bear the humiliation of the dying lion kicked 



350 LORDS OF TRADE PERPLEXED. 

by the ass from one who — be it said without blame — 
bends low before the heroes of the revolution. To the 
vulgar mind success is the proof of merit, and the old 
saying, 

Donee eris felix, multos numerabis amicos, 

is accepted as an exhortation to the worship of success. 
Had England quelled the revolt, as she very probably 
would have done without the timely succor the French 
gave Washington, and had she deported the American 
rebels, true rebels these with far less grievances than 
the Acadians, how would Parkman have attuned his 
lyre ? 

It is strange that Mascarene's equitable suggestions 
were not acted upon by the Lords of Trade. Their 
-conduct in this matter contrasts with their usual equity. 
Had the grantees of the 100,000 acres — amongst whom 
were a Secretary of State, his brother and a future 
Secretary of State — enough influence successfully to 
plead in bar of Mascarene's request ? I cannot say. 

Lawrence's letter threw the Lords of Trade into 
great perplexity, as may be seen by the following 
extract from their answer of March 4th, 1754 : 

-" The more we consider this point, the more nice and difficult it 
appears to us ; for, as on the one hand great caution ought to be 
used to avoid giving any alarm and creating such a diffidence in 
their minds as might induce them to quit tJie Province, and by their 
numbers add strength to the French settlements, so, on the other 
hand, we should be equally cautious of creating an improper and 
false confidence in them, that by a perseverance in refusing to take 
the oath of allegiance, they may gradually work out in their own 
way a right to their lands." 

To a man of Lawrence's character this was tantamount 
to saying : Deceive them if necessary, give them 




REVOLT OF GERMAN SETTLERS. 351 

vaguely to understand that titles will be granted to 
them, taking great care, however, not to commit your- 
self to any formal promise. Nevertheless, do all that is 
needed to prevent them from leaving. 

And yet this much must be said in palliation of the 
Lords of Trade : from their point of view, they were 
imparting counsels of prudence and moderation that 
might serve as a check on Lawrence's impetuous and 
perverse nature. Of course there is no denying the 
trickery implied in this letter ; but we should bear 
in mind that, for the last forty years, trickery had 
become so interwoven with the traditional policy that 
it was impossible for the best of well-meaning men 
entirely to free themselves from its meshes. Moreover, 
this letter was written at a time when the Lords of 
Trade hardly knew what decision to take on the matter 
at issue ; and, in order to be perfectly fair towards them, 
this letter should be collated with another dated on the 
29th of the ensuing October, which may be viewed as 
completing and greatly modifying it.* 

In the letter cited above from Lawrence, there is a 
long account of an insurrection of German Protestant 
settlers at Lunenburg, who belonged to Cornwallis's 
colony. Before becoming president of the council, 
Lawrence had been commandant at that place, and his 
presence had been marked by troubles and by many 
desertions doubtless due to the severity of his rule. 
Directly after his departure the discontent broke out, 
men rushed to arms, and to avert the actual shedding of 
blood nothing less was needed than the presence of 
troops from Halifax, and as Murdoch says : " Monckton 
advised that, as the people there were so generally im- 

* This letter is inserted further on. 



352 REVOLT OF GERMAN SETTLERS. 

plicated, the better course would be to grant a general 
forgiveness, but Lawrence desired to punish the ring- 
leaders. . . ." 

According to his invariable habit the Compiler has 
mutilated Lawrence's letter, leaving out all that relates 
to the insurrection of the Lunenburg colonists. As we 
know the Compiler's purpose, we quite understand that it 
would have been impolitic for him to bring to light such 
facts, for they constitute a glaring contrast to the 
obedience of the Acadians, albeit the latter must have 
been still worse treated than those Protestant colonists 
who had been brought out and established at the 
expense of the government. 

Now that we know the effect of Lawrence's adminis- 
tration among the English and German colonists, and 
what they thought of him at the outset of his career, 
we are in a position to judge of the reputation he had 
left behind him among the Acadians according to a 
letter from Captain Murray, commander of Fort Edward 
(Pigiguit) to Lawrence himself, wherein he reports to 
him what they had said of him : " That he was a man 
they personally hated, and dislike his government so 
much they would never be easy under it, he having treated 
them so harshly when amongst them." However, he 
had never been able to provoke the least resistance, 
whereas the Germans had no intention of so meekly 
enduring oppression. 

On June 21st, 1754, Lawrence " informed the Council 
that he had received a letter from Captain Scott, com- 
mandant at Fort Lawrence, acquainting him that on 
the 14th of June instant, the deserted inhabitants of 
Beaubassin District who had petitioned for leave to 
return to their lands, came and brought him their 



BEAUBASSIN REFUGEES. 353 

answer in relation to the resolution of Council of 27th 
September last, which was that, unless the President of 
the Council would assure them, from under his hand, 
that they should remain neuter and be exempt from taking 
up arms against any person whatsoever, it would be 
impossible for them even to think of returning, as they 
would every day run the risk of having their throats cut 
and their cattle destroyed by the savages, and this they 
gave as their last answer." 

" Wherein it was resolved that nothing further would 
be done than as resolved by the Council on the said 27th 
of September. " 

This resolution of September 27th had been passed 
under Hopson's administration, and the communication 
of the Acadians mentioned above was the answer there- 
to ; but, since that time, Lawrence himself had made 
proposals to them inducing them to return to their 
lands. He had declared to them that it was not his 
intention at present to oblige them to military service ; 
which meant that he bound himself to nothing. Such 
an offer coming from Hopson would have deserved con- 
sideration ; coming from Lawrence, it was worthless. 
Some more formal engagement was needed, with his 
signature into the bargain ; else it were impossible 
" even to think of returning." 

Their motives for mistrusting Lawrence were too 
numerous to admit of their falling into the snare, and 
they had been too often deceived to be satisfied with 
vague promises. But, why was Lawrence so anxious 
for their return? For we must not forget that the 
deportation is now less than a twelvemonth ahead. 
Had the Acadian voluntary exiles been turbulent, sedi- 
tious, dangerous, it would have been the acme of im- 
23 



354 BEAUBASSIN REFUGEES. 

prudence to receive a hostile element in the very heart 
of the province, and worse still to invite them to come. 
Now, contemptible as Lawrence was, he was no fool. 
Therefore, we may safely say, the presence of this new 
Acadian element was desirable, useful, almost or quite 
free from danger ; therefore their behavior had been 
hitherto submissive enough to warrant Lawrence's press- 
ing invitations ; therefore, in fine, to justify the deporta- 
tion, motives must be sought in the twelvemonth that 
followed. In point of fact no valid reason exists any- 
where, not more and perhaps less during this twelve- 
month than before it. 



GENERAL CHARGES. 355 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Lawrence becomes Lieutenant-Governor — His accusations against 
the Acadians — Project of expulsion — The Lords of Trade. 

My aim has been to pick out by preference and relate 
the facts supposed to tell against the Acadians, as they 
are to be found in the volume of the Archives. This 
I have faithfully done hitherto and will continue to do. 
The following letter from Lawrence to the Lords of 
Trade, dated August 1st, 1754, is clearly the document 
that contains the gravest accusations against them. I 
produce it almost entire despite its length : 

"Your Lordships well know, that the Acadians have always 
affected a neutrality, and as it has been generally imagined here, 
that the mildness of an English Government would by degrees have 
fixed them in our interest, no violent measures have ever been 
taken with them. But I must observe to Your Lordships, that this 
lenity has not had the least good effect ; on the contrary, I believe 
they have at present laid aside all thought of taking the oath vol- 
untarily, and great numbers of them are at present gone to Beau- 
sejour to work for the French, in order to dyke out the water at 
the settlement I informed Your Lordships they were going to make 
on the north side of the Bay of Fundy, notwithstanding they were 
refused passes which they applied for to go thither. And upon 
their complaining that they could get no employment with the 
English, they were acquainted that as many as would come to 
Halifax should be employed, tho' in reality, I had no employ- 
ment for them, but I proposed to order them to widen the road to 
Shubenecadie, as I very well knew if I could get them once here, 
it would put off their journey to Beausejour, and would be no ex- 
pense to the Government, as I was sure they would refuse the work 



356 DEPORTATION FORESHADOWED. 

for fear of disobliging the Indians. But, as they did not come, I 
have issued a Proclamation, ordering them to return forthwith to 
their lands, as they should answer the contrary to their peril. 

" They have not for a long time brought anything to our mar- 
kets, but on the other hand have carried everything to the French 
and Indians whom they have always assisted with provisions, 
quarters and intelligence, and, indeed, while they remain without 
taking the oath to His Majesty — which they never will do till they 
are forced — and have incendiary French priests among them, there 
are no hopes of their amendment. 

" As they possess the best and largest tracts of land in this Prov- 
ince, it cannot be settled with any effect while they remain in this 
situation, and, though I would be very far from attempting such a 
step ivithout Your Lordships' approbation, yet I cannot help 
being of opinion that it would be much better, if they refuse the 
oath, that they were away." 

Why this change of tone from the pressing invitation 
to return which he sent to the emigrated Acadians a 
few weeks ago ? The reason is very plain : Lawrence 
had just made up his mind to deport the Acadians, nor 
does he scruple to let his intention be known. Up to 
this time he had been only president of the Council 
awaiting Hopson's return. Now he must be aware that 
Hopson is not to return and that his own appointment 
as lieutenant-governor is sure ; it was, indeed, officially 
announced a few weeks later.* 

The better to prepare the Lords of Trade for his per- 
fidious designs, he had to depict the conduct of the 
Acadians in the most sombre colors. The above letter 
is the result of his efforts in that direction. As the 
correspondence and the official acts of the governors 

* Philip H. Smith, who, in his " Acadia ; a Lost Chapter in American 
History," shows so much fairness and perspicacity, says of this letter and 
the following ones : " The reader cannot fail to note the change in the tone 
of the letters sent to the Home Government relative to the French Neutrals; 
Lawrence proved himself the sort of ruler that was needed to carry out 
the harsh measure of the deportation." 



TRADING WITH THE FRENCH. 357 

for the past four years did not hint at the slightest in- 
fringement of orders throughout the entire peninsula, 
it behooved Lawrence to pave the way for specific alle- 
gations by general complaints, so that his change of 
tone might seem to be supported by facts. This is the 
only explanation that Can be offered of the general ac- 
cusations contained in the above letter, which are either 
false or greatly exaggerated. 

My purpose being to reply to each and every one of 
Lawrence's accusations, I now take up those which are 
contained in the foregoing letter. He accuses the 
Acadians of intercourse with the French and of having 
assisted the latter by selling them their produce. This 
must have been true in Mascarene's time, and before, 
when there was only one fort at the extremity of the 
province, and when there was practically no protection 
of the frontier line. But no government has a right to 
complain of such infractions, when it neglects the 
necessary precautions against them. Experience proves 
that, when breaches of a law are easy and unaccom- 
panied by risk of punishment, the most virtuous and 
loyal people will wink at them. Loyalty and obedience 
offer no remedy to the greed of gain. Surely, the 
Acadians would need to have been endowed with super- 
human perfection, if they had not sometimes taken 
advantage of a situation that enabled them to do a good 
stroke of business without let or hindrance. Moreover, 
Mascarene never complained of these business relations 
with the French in time of peace ; on the contrary, in 
one of his letters he very wisely remarks that this traffic 
should be ignored, because the Annapolis garrison 
could not consume all the produce of the farmers, and 
therefore, to stop that traffic was to paralyze farming 



358 TKIFLES. 

interests ; besides, he adds, it is a source of profit to 
everybody because it brings into the country French 
money, which otherwise would go to Canada or else- 
where. When war broke out in 1744, the Acadians, as 
we have seen, whether at the Governor's suggestion or 
perhaps of their own accord, formed an association to 
prevent all such business relations. They themselves 
undertook police duty for the Government against their 
fellow-countrymen, and, after the war, those of them 
who were suspected of infringing the prohibitory decree 
were arrested on complaint of the members of this 
association. The most loyal of subjects could have 
done no more and would have been justified in doing 
less. 

Since the foundation of Halifax and the building of 
forts at Grand Pre*, Pigiguit and Beaubassin, the 
English Government had the means of preventing all 
commercial or other relations between the French and 
the Acadians ; and, in point of fact, such misdemeanors 
in this line as eluded the vigilance of the English must 
have been few and far between, as the Archives do not 
mention one single complaint before the courts. Had 
there been any complaints, Lawrence would not have 
been slow to order an investigation and severely to 
punish the guilty. 

Granting, however, that there may have been some 
breaches of law on this score, they would be but the 
veriest trifles, occurring in all times and places and 
among all nations, subject to the cognizance of law- 
courts, and at any rate quite too unimportant to figure 
as an argument in a tragic event like the deportation. 

" They have not for a long time brought anything to 
our markets," was Lawrence's perfidious assertion, I say 









LOCAL CONDITIONS OF SALE. 359 

perfidious, because he wrote these words to the Lords of 
Trade on the 1st of August. At that date it could not 
well be otherwise : the preceding harvest must have 
been sold or consumed long before, and the coming har- 
vest was still standing. Probably Lawrence's implied 
accusation had no other ground than this ; but this was 
a plausible ground for a man that was on the look-out 
for pretexts to make his point. He relied upon the 
Lords of Trade not noticing that the beginning of 
August was a date far removed from the usual time for 
the sale of last year's crops. There were also other 
local conditions which would no doubt escape their 
notice. For instance, it cannot be supposed that the 
Acadians went one by one to sell their produce at Hali- 
fax, which was so far off, and the road to which was 
almost impassable on foot. They must have employed 
agents to carry their produce by water. Now the only 
commercial agents in Acadian centres were English : 
Blin, Donnell, Winniet, Jr., at Annapolis ; Rogers at 
Cobequid ; Arbuckle at Fort Lawrence ; Dyson and 
Mauger at Pigiguit and Grand Pre\ Mauger had 
another store at Halifax, and, if I mistake not, Blin, 
Donnell and Winniet had other stores either at Grand 
Pre* or Fort Lawrence. * To these men, therefore, must 
the Acadians have sold their produce, and through them 
must all purchases have been made. As in Lawrence's 
mind the smallest things easily usurped the proportions 
of great ones, or took their place when the latter could 
not be found, he has taken the trouble to enter the 
following item in his official papers : " Their desiring — 



* Alain, Nicholas Gauthier and Joseph Le Blanc had closed their stores 
during the war, and, as far as I can ascertain, there was not at this time 
one Acadian merchant in the whole peninsula. 



360 LOCAL CONDITIONS OF SALE. 

the Acadians — to sell their grain to Mr. Dyson and re- 
fusing it to Mr. Mauger for the same money appears 
very extraordinary" 

While the public documents do not contain, to the 
best of my knowledge, one single specific case of com- 
mercial relations between the Acadians and the French, 
attributed by name to one in particular or to several collec- 
tively, they do contain many cases of business trans- 
actions between the French and some English merchants, 
particularly Arbuckle and that very Mauger whom Law- 
rence seems to have taken under his protection.* And 
as to general charges against Englishmen, many will be 
found at pages 630, 638, 646 of the Archives. I will 
quote one only. Writing to the Lords of Trade, Novem- 
ber 27th, 1750, Cornwallis said : " I am assured the 
New England people have this year carried numbers of 
dollars to Louisburg. . . . They supply Louisburg with 
every necessary, and the advantage upon this traffic 
is so great, that they go sooner there than to this Port." 

I am almost ashamed to have to weary the reader with 
these trifles ; but, as the deportation has no more solid 
basis than these, and as its justinableness must stand or 
fall with the accusations of its author, I am forced to 
discuss these childish charges with becoming gravity. 

In the letter of August 1st, 1754, Lawrence speaks but 
tentatively and hesitatingly as yet of his deporting plan, 
though this is clearly what he means in spite of the 
care with which he veils his design. He is content with 
humbly submitting to the Lords of Trade his opinion 
that, if the Acadians, ivho have the finest farms of the 

* Mauger became a member of the House of Commons in 1763. Mur- 
doch mentions, as doing business at Louisburg with the French : W. 
Blin, Barber, S. Butler, Jenkins, Breed, Lord, Turner, Clarke, Aubin, 
Green, Dyke, all from New England. 



SKILFUL SUGGESTION. 361 

province, refuse to take the oath, " it would be much 
better that they were away, though " he " would be very 
far from attempting such a step without " their " Lord- 
ships' approbation" Doubtless the deportation is already 
decided upon ; the means thereto and the date alone 
remain to be settled. Lawrence's only concern now is 
to prepare the Lords of Trade for an approval of the 
deed beforehand, if possible, or for an acceptance of 
accomplished facts which is to be wrung from them by 
dint of misrepresentations. This letter is the first step 
in the course he has already planned. He cannot hope 
to bring the Lords of Trade to approve so cruel a measure 
as deportation would be ; so, as yet, he confines himself 
to an indefinite suggestion : " it would be better that they 
were away ; " and he submits his will to theirs with the 
most humble deference : " I would be very far from 
attempting such a step without Your Lordships'" approba- 
tion" For the time being he intends merely to predis- 
pose them against the Acadians. By a skilful renewal 
of the dose he hopes to bring them gradually round to 
his way of thinking. Besides, has he not full power in 
his own hands ? Can he not, by continued severity, 
provoke the Acadians to some acts that will justify on 
his part an increase of rigor ? 

When Lawrence wrote that the Acadians had better 
be away, his real intention cannot have been to let them 
join the French at Beausejour, since he had, precisely at 
that time, issued a proclamation obliging, under severe 
penalties, those who had just left the country to return 
immediately. He knew of the pressing and reiterated 
instructions of the Lords of Trade to his predecessors, 
and to himself a few months ago, urging the governors 
to avoid whatever might, by alarming the Acadians, 



362 WHAT LAWRENCE MEANT. 

lead to their departure. The consequences of theii 
voluntary departure must have seemed to him too dis- 
astrous, or at any rate too threatening, to be thought of 
for a moment. No ; what he had in view was, mani- 
festly, a forced departure to places chosen by himself, 
that is to say, a deportation such as he accomplished 
twelve months later. 

For the past four years at least the only act of dis- 
obedience specified in the volume of the Archives is 
mentioned by Lawrence in the letter I am now review- 
ing. Three hundred Acadians had gone off to Beause*- 
jour, as he tells us, to assist their emigrated countrymen 
in the work of dike-building. Had they or had they not 
left with the intention of returning no more? It would 
be hard to say. What we know, through Lawrence 
himself, is that they asked leave to go and were re- 
fused. Nor should we forget that, five years before, 
Cornwallis, driven to his wits' end, had promised pass- 
ports, as soon as the state of the country would allow, 
to all who might wish to quit the province. If the three 
hundred intended not to return, then, with or without 
passports, it was high time to take advantage of the 
promises of Cornwallis, whether these were sincere or 
not. If, on the other hand, those absentees had left 
with a mind to come back, then Lawrence might be 
justified in taking proper measures to enforce their 
return and even to punish their disobedience. Very 
likely some of them had left for good, while others in- 
tended to decide at Beause*jour whether or not they 
would return. Lawrence's increasing severity was al- 
ready making people anxious, as this unauthorized de- 
parture shows. 

The season for the building of dikes was a very short 



WHAT LAWRENCE MEANT. 363 

one, and the present undertaking at Beausejour was the 
first serious attempt to secure farms for those who had 
emigrated in Cornwallis's time. These refugees were 
the relatives, the brothers of the Acadians, who naturally 
wished to assist them in a labor that promised to lift 
them out of poverty and furnish food for their fami- 
lies. The helpers who had gone to Beausejour were 
themselves exposed, at any moment, to be expelled from 
the province if the unrestricted oath were exacted. In 
such a juncture they would be glad to find beyond the 
frontier relatives and friends able to help them in their 
turn. Thus in a way they were really working for 
themselves. 

They were ordered to return directly. In all likeli- 
hood the order was promptly obeyed by those who, in- 
tending to return, had left their families behind ; else 
the Archives would certainly mention severe measures 
against the disobedient, their families or their property. 
When Lawrence gave an order, he was not to be trifled 
with, as the Acadians knew to their cost. 

That Lawrence had by this time determined on the 
deportation is, I think, clear enough. True, the evi- 
dence is still vague and indefinite, though convincing 
as far as it goes. Patience will be needed by those who 
follow my line of proof : for the chain of evidence is a 
long one. But every link is there. The last letter I 
have quoted from Lawrence is, properly speaking, only 
the first link in the chain that constitutes the main 
strength of this Lost Chapter. The entire evidence, 
strong in induction and analysis, will be equally strong 
in official documents of undoubted authenticity. 

However, before proceeding further, let me anticipate 
an objection which doubtless is already taking shape in 



364 HIS SECRET PURPOSE. 

the reader's mind : viz., the improbability of such an in- 
human purpose based on no grave cause and born of 
sheer cruelty. Right here, then, let me affirm that the 
deportation, in the mind of its chief authors, was nei- 
ther a justifiable act nor a deed of cruelty pure and sim- 
ple, but a means of acquiring wealth by despoiling the 
Acadians of their cattle and their lands. On this point 
I entertain the hope that, long before the reader has 
finished the book, he will be fully convinced that I am 
indulging in no historical fiction. 

Forestalling somewhat the strict chronological 
sequence of events, I will now give the answer of the 
Lords of Trade to Lawrence's insidious letter : 

" We cannot form a proper judgment or give a final opinion of 
what measures may be necessary to be taken with regard to those 
inhabitants, until we have laid the whole state of the case before 
His Majesty and receive his instructions upon it. 

" We were in hopes that the lenity which had been shown to 
those people by indulging them in the free exercise of their relig- 
ion, and the quiet possession of their lands, would by degrees have 
gained their friendship and assistance and weaned their affections 
from the French, and we are sorry to hear that this lenity has had 
so little effect. 

' ' It is certain that by the Treaty of Utrecht their becoming sub- 
jects to Great Britain (which we apprehend they cannot be but be- 
taking the oath required of subjects) is made an express condition 
of their continuance, after the expiration of a year, and therefore 
it may be a question well worth considering how far they can be 
treated as subjects without taking such oaths, and whether their 
refusal to take them will not operate to invalidate the titles to their 
lands ; it is a question, however, which tee trill not take upon our- 
selves absolutely to determine, but could wish that you would 
consult the Chief Justice upon this point and take his opinion, 
which may serve as a foundation for any future measure it may be 
thought advisable to pursue. 

" As to those of the District of Beaubassinwho are actually gone 
over to the French at Beausejour, if the Chief Justice should be 



UNSATISFACTORY REPLY. 365 

of opinion that by refusing to take oaths without a reserve or by 
deserting their settlements to join the French, they have forfeited 
their title to their lands, we could wish that proper measures were 
pursued for carrying such forfeiture into execution by legal pro- 



Lawrence must have expected something better. Of 
course lie had gained his point in that he had indis- 
posed the Lords of Trade and prejudiced their minds ; 
but he may have hoped that their reply would contain 
some declaration that should be a more definite step 
toward his chosen goal. Unfortunately for him his 
proposal, " it would be better that they were away," 
was merely referred to His Majesty or rather eluded. 
Politeness forbade the Lords of Trade expressing doubts 
about Lawrence's accusations ; but the difference of 
tone between him and Hopson in so short an interval 
must have struck them, as the tenor of their letter 
seems to show. However, they in no way depart from 
their habitual wisdom and serenity. They seem to 
fear that he may act arbitrarily ; they strongly advise 
him to keep to the rules and traditions of his office, to 
consult the Chief Justice as to whether the refusal to 
take the oath will invalidate the title-deeds of those 
who remain in the province, and even to ask his opin- 
ion on this matter with respect to those who have quit- 
ted the province. Should the Chief Justice decide that 
these latter have by their departure forfeited their 
titles, resort should be had to legal process of confis- 
cation. 

This letter is a fair average specimen of all those 
addressed to the governors of Acadia ; and from one 
who, like myself, seeks nothing but historic truth, dis- 
tributing praise or blame irrespective of persons, though 



366 fairiness of the lords. 

always finding it more agreeable to praise than to blame, 
this letter naturally elicits the remark that the Lords 
of Trade hardly ever swerved from this wise and 
prudent course. If we take into account the circum- 
stances of time and place, the pressure exercised upon 
them, the misrepresentations made to them, their con- 
duct, viewed as a whole, certainly deserves no very severe 
censure and is often praiseworthy. I have not the 
slightest doubt that they would have treated the Aca- 
dians very differently in the matter of the oath, had 
they been aware of all the facts I have recorded about 
the hindering of their departure by Nicholson, Vetch, 
Armstrong, Philipps, and Cornwallis. These hindrances 
are, for obvious reasons, not mentioned in the letters of 
these governors ; they could not mention them without 
condemning themselves. This important fact must not 
be overlooked by those who wish to be just to the Lords 
of Trade. 

Furthermore, this letter seems to prove conclusively 
that, when Cornwallis placed the Acadians in the cruel 
dilemma of taking the oath or of leaving without their 
movables, he must have been going beyond his orders, 
since the Lords of Trade here show that they are 
doubtful even as to the Government's right to confiscate 
.the immovables of those who had left the province. 



DATE OF LAWRENCE'S DECISION. 367 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Lawrence's persecution — Its effect — Complaints to justify the 
deportation collected in the Archives — Order not to quit the 
province under pain of military execution for the families of 
delinquents . 

It was all the easier for Lawrence to be tyrannical 
and cruel because he was naturally so violently prone 
to such behavior that he persecuted his fellow-coun- 
trymen of Halifax and his German co-religionists 
of Lunenburg, when it was his interest to stand well 
with them. From the Acadians, on the other hand, he 
had nothing to fear ; and if, as seems likely, he had 
already planned their deportation, it became his interest 
to drive them to acts of insubordination in order to give 
a semblance of justice to the execution of his project. 

Nor is it at all difficult to follow every step Lawrence 
took as he matured his decision. This decision was 
come to in or about July, 1754, when it was known that 
Hopson was not to return and that he, Lawrence, was 
to succeed him. Hitherto he had laid no charges 
against the Acadians ; he had even gone the length of 
begging those who had emigrated to return ; and, to 
all appearances, he had not indulged in excessive rigor. 
Now, however, comes a complete change. On the 1st 
of August he addresses to the Lords of Trade a letter 
filled with accusations, concluding thus : " they have 
the best lands in the Province, it would be better that 



368 

they were away." His resolution is taken. Persecu- 
tion begins. Hopson, as we have seen, had ordered the 
officers to treat Acadians in all cases exactly like the 
other subjects of His Majesty, and not to take anything 
from them by force or without a voluntary agreement 
on their part as to prices. Lawrence's first act after his 
letter of August 1st was to revoke the just and humane 
orders of Hopson, and — a circumstance worth noting 
— this iniquity was consummated on August the 5th, four 
days after the letter just referred to. Here is the order, 
bearing the above date, addressed by him to Captain 
Murray, Commandant of Fort Edward, at Pigiguit. 
Similar orders were sent elsewhere : 

11 Tou are not to bargain with the Acadians for their payment; 
but, as they bring in what is wanted, you will furnish them with cer- 
tificates, which will entitle them to such payments at Halifax as shall 
I bethought reasonable. If they should immediately fail to comply, 

you will assure them that the next courier will bring an order for 
military execution upon the delinquents." 

In another letter to the same, dated 1st of September 
following, we find this : " No excuse will be taken for not 
fetching in firewood, and if they do not do it in proper 
time, the soldiers shall absolutely take their houses for 
fuel" This was over and above the military execution. 

As always happens when the documents have not the 
desired tendency, these letters are not to be found in 
the volume of the Archives. Haliburton, who repro- 
duces them, adds : 

"The requisitions which were occasionally made of them were 
conveyed in a manner not much calculated to conciliate affection, 
and when they were informed by Captain Murray, that unless they 
supplied his detachment with fuel military execution would follow, 
they were not slow to notice the difference between the contracts of 
Government with the English and the compulsory method adopted 
towards them. 1 ' 



RESPECTFUL DEMURRER. 369 

With reference to the same orders Philip H. Smith 
says : 

" Murray was in command of a handful of men at Fort Edward 
(now Windsor), and like other upstart despots, laboring under an 
abiding sense of his own importance, clothed with absolute authority 
over life and property, and secure in the fact that French evidence 
would not be received against him, he was not likely to be at a loss 
for a pretext to display his authority." 

These orders, as may be readily supposed, provoked 
discontent; but they were obeyed everywhere except 
at Pigiguit, and even in this case there was no refusal, 
merely delay until the inhabitants should receive an an- 
swer to their representations addressed to the Governor. 

This incident would seem unimportant, since the 
people declared that, if their demurrer were not favor- 
ably received, they would obey. This is what Murray 
himself wrote to Lawrence : 

"All the affair of the Indians or inhabitants taking up arms is 
false, for M. Deschamps * told me this morning that, in conversation 
with some of the Acadians, he told them what Daudin (the priest) 
had said, they were astonished and declared that they had no inten- 
tion ever to take up arms, for, if at the return of the party from 
Halifax, they were ordered to bring in the fuel, notwithstanding their 
representations, they were resolved to obey. 11 

A great fuss was made about this disobedience, which 
in reality was no disobedience at all, since the Acadians 
made the execution of these orders depend on the Gov- 
ernor's answer. At most it was a short delay. Was 
the right of complaint by petition, one of the basic 
rights of British freedom, non-existent for them? In 
the name of the most elementary common sense, was it 
not fitting to grant them the slender satisfaction of 

* Deschamps, later a judge of the province, was then a clerk at Mauger's 
store at Pigiguit (Windsor). 
24 



370 ORDEKED TO HALIFAX. 

waiting till the answer came ? Surely, any man with 
the faintest spark of kindliness would have done this ; 
nay, I feel confident that Lawrence himself, in spite of 
his ferocity, would have waited, had he not intended to 
exasperate them by his severity, to make trouble and 
thus create pretexts for deporting them. 

But he would brook no delay. The following order- 
in-council, refusing to entertain their petition, left them 
no time to obey and summoned to Halifax five of the 
principal citizens together with Abbe* Daudin their mis- 
sionary. 

44 The Council having taken the same into consideration, were of 
opinion and did advise that the commanding officer should be in- 
structed to repeat his orders to bring in the firewood upon pain of 
military execution. And it was likewise resolved that Mr. Daudin 
and five of the principal of the said inhabitants should be ordered to 
repair immediately to Halifax to give an account of their conduct." 

Captain Murray ordered five of the principal inhab- 
itants to appear before him, viz., Claude Brassard, 
Charles Le Blanc, Baptiste Galerne, Jacques Foret and 
Joseph Hubert. "As they had the impudence," said 
Murray to Lawrence, " to ask me to show them your 
instructions, I turned them out of the house." Daudin 
and these five inhabitants were taken to Halifax, es- 
corted by Captain Cox, Lieutenant Mercer, Ensign 
Peach, and a strong detachment of soldiers. 

After a week's detention the laymen were released ; 
but Daudin was kept prisoner till an occasion should 
offer for sending him out of the province. The docu- 
ments here given by the Compiler are not sufficient to 
afford a clear notion of Daudin's part in this affair. 
The charge was that he had used disrespectful language 
towards the authorities, that the insubordination of the 



DAUDIN. 371 

inhabitants dated from his return from Annapolis, 
Daudin produced a written defence which was not 
deemed satisfactory. It does not appear in the volume 
of the Archives. 

Murray, reporting to Lawrence his conversation with 
Daudin, said: 

"Daudin said tome that he was ignorant of the representation 
made by the inhabitants until Monday morning. That I had taken 
a very wrong step in not consulting him before I acquainted you of 
the affair, which, if I had, he would have brought the inhabitants 
in a very submissive manner to me, but, instead of that, I had sent a 
Detachment to you who was a man the inhabitants personally hated, 
and disliked your Government so much, they could never be easy, 
under it, having treated them so harshly when amongst them." 

This would seem to show that Daudin had knowir 
nothing of the resolution of the inhabitants till after 
they had formed it; that, on the contrary, he would 
have been ready to use his influence in bringing them 
to obey the Government's orders ; and that he merely 
objected to Murray's proceedings. The last part of the 
above quotation is probably what constituted the " dis- 
respectful language toward the authorities." Lawrence 
was not likely to forgive so personal an offence. 

I gather, moreover, from all the foregoing incidents, 
that the Acadians expected Murray would present 
their petition to the Governor in the usual way, without 
attaching to this step nor to their momentary suspension 
of work more importance than was proper ; that, instead 
of doing so, Murray confided the petition to a detach- 
ment of troops, thus giving an exaggerated idea of the 
affair and exposing the Acadians to fresh severity from 
Lawrence : and they were evidently in mortal terror of 
this despot. 



372 SUPPOSED FRENCH DESERTERS. 

Such is the conclusion deduced from the sole testi- 
mony of the accuser. This is one of those rare cases in 
which we might have been allowed to study both sides 
of the Daudin incident, since Daudin produced a written 
defence ; but this defence is wanting in the volume of 
the Archives, which also omits the petition of the Aca- 
dians. With such one-sided testimony it is impossible 
either to exonerate or to condemn Daudin. We must, 
however, bear in mind that in Captain Murray, as will 
be proved later, we have the most inhuman of all the 
officers in Lawrence's clique. Murray was a great hand 
at making much ado about nothing, and this seems to 
have been a case in point. 

Another incident that occurred eight months after 
the one I have just related is inserted here, in spite of 
its futility, because it will serve to show that, in culling 
from the volume of the Archives, I neglect none of 
those documents that might militate against the Aca- 
dians and their submissive spirit. Under date of the 
27th of the following May, 1755, Lawrence wrote to 
Murray informing him that he had been advised by 
Major Handfield of Annapolis that three French sol- 
diers from Beause'jour were in the Mines district, osten- 
sibly as deserters, in reality to seduce the inhabitants 
and urge them either to take up arms or to leave the 
province : 

11 I would have you issue a Proclamation offering a reward of 
twenty pounds sterling to whomsoever shall discover when any one 
or more of these pretended deserters may be apprehended. You will 
publish this Proclamation by means of the Acadian Deputies, and you 
must assemble them for that purpose and inform them . . . that if 
any inhabitant either old or young should offer to go to Beausejour, 
or to take arms, or induce others to commit any act of hostility upon 
the English, or make any declaration in favor of the French, they 



SUPPOSED FRENCH DESERTERS. 373 

will be treated as rebels, their estates confiscated, and their families 
undergo immediate military execution. 

" I desire also that you will immediately publish a Proclamation 
offering a reward of twenty pounds sterling to any person that will 
apprehend and bring Joseph Dugas of Cobequid, or any or more of 
the couriers who arrived at Beausejour on the 5th May instant with 
letters for Le Loutre, also the same reward for apprehending the 
couriers who arrived at Beausejour the evening of the said 5th May 
with letters for said Le Loutre from Mines and Pigiguit." 

The information Lawrence had received might be 
true or false, we have no means of knowing which ; 
but, as the volume of the Archives reports no later pro- 
ceedings with regard to these proclamations and the 
possible results thereof, I am inclined to think that the 
whole story was a groundless rumor. Nor is there any- 
thing surprising in that, since the events that led Law- 
rence to write were supposed to have occurred in the 
immediate neighborhood and in the jurisdiction of 
Captain Murray himself, whereas the information came 
from Annapolis at the other end of the province. At 
any rate these events are of no real importance, except 
inasmuch as they prove that Lawrence's rule had become 
so oppressive and so odious that the French were re- 
newing their attempts to make the Acadians emigrate. 

And yet the above facts must have been the gravest 
that could be trumped up, since they are the only ones 
that occasioned governmental interference, or at least 
the only ones that figure in the volume of the Archives. 
Thus — incredible as it may seem — these are the only 
facts on which the reader can base his judgment as to 
whether or not the deportation was justifiable. Barring 
the refusal to take an unrestricted oath, there is not, up 
to the very deportation itself, one single other incident 
that might, by any constructive process, be twisted into 



374 INSIGNIFICANT PRETEXTS. 

a pretext therefor. Would any man in his senses main- 
tain that such petty incidents, trifling in themselves 
and devoid of all general significance, could constitute 
adequate motives for inflicting upon a whole people a 
chastisement that implied the accumulation of all 
human ills? In the Pigiguit incident the only culprit 
was Lawrence himself. His orders upsetting the equi- 
table regulations of Hopson were unjust and barbarous. 
He ought at least to have allowed them the right to 
make respectful remonstrance, especially when they 
had declared that they would obey directly if their 
petition was rejected, and when Lawrence was informed 
of this by Murray himself. In the case of the French 
soldiers coming to seduce them, the Acadians could not 
be blamed unless they listened to their proposals. 
Seductions of this kind, but much more serious, were not 
lacking during the war from 1744 to 1748, and we know 
how inoperative they were. If such motives could 
justify Lawrence's conduct, he might have found still 
stronger ones against the Germans of Lunenburg, and 
perhaps against the colonists of Halifax, though in both 
these instances his government was far more equitable. 
The fact is, a despot can always find means to justify 
any act ot cruelty ; and we read of no other people 
who, if situated as the Acadians were, would have 
borne such injustice and so much provocation with so 
little unruliness. 

It will be remembered that Cornwallis, after exhaust- 
ing many subterfuges to prevent the departure of the 
Acadians, finally took refuge in the passport ruse. 
Events are there to prove that his promise was nothing 
but a subterfuge, and now we have Lawrence carrying 
ferociousness to the extent of threatening with military 



ELEVEN SUBTERFUGES. 375 

execution the families of those who should leave the 
country. 

As the list of subterfuges is a long one, I may be 
allowed to summarize them thus : 

1st subterfuge (Vetch) — You shall not depart before Nichol- 
son's return. 
2nd " (Nicholson) — You shall not depart till after such 

and such points shall have been 
decided by the Queen. 
3rd " (Vetch) — You shall not depart in English vessels. 

4th " (Vetch)— " " " " " French " 

5th " (Vetch) — You cannot procure rigging at Louis- 

burg. 
6th " (Vetch) — You cannot procure rigging at Boston. 

7th M (Vetch) — You shall not depart in your own 

vessels. 
8th " (Philippe) — You shall not make roads to depart 

by. 
1730 — Restricted oath accepted. 
1749 — Your oath was worthless. 
9th M (Cornwallis) — You shall not depart this autumn. 

10th " (Cornwaelis)— You " " " till after you 

have sown your fields. 
11th " (Cornwallis)— You shall not depart without 

passports. 

After this last subterfuge, they now were prisoners, 
kept in their country in spite of themselves, herded like 
a lot of cattle awaiting the butcher's pleasure. Does 
not this afford strong presumption that, when Lawrence 
wrote the Lords of Trade, " it would be better that they 
were away," he had not in view a free exodus but a 
deportation such as really took place ? 



376 FRENCH MISRULE. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Situation of the Acadians at Beausejour — Venality of Vergor 
and the French officers — Le Loutre. 

The time has now come to review briefly the prin- 
cipal events that had occurred within the last few years 
at Beausejour on French territory. I have already 
spoken of the efforts Le Loutre had made to force the 
Beaubassin Acadians to cross the frontier. He then 
had a promise from the Governor of Canada that those 
who should emigrate from English territory would 
receive compensation for their losses. A line of dikes 
was to be constructed that would provide for the 
majority of them excellent farms ready for tillage. 
Unfortunately Le Loutre 's efforts seem to have been, 
for a long time, frustrated by the extortions and venality 
of the French officers. France was then traversing one 
of the most shameful epochs of her history. She was 
taking all available roads to ruin. Every incentive to 
great movements and noble undertakings, whatever had 
hitherto commanded respect and provoked enthusiasm 
was fast disappearing under the polished irony of gentle- 
manly scamps whose wit amused France and stood to 
her instead of glory. There was pulling down without 
building up. All that had been the strength of France 
was wasting away before this destructive blast, and 
nothing remained but the wilderness it created. Pleas- 
ure was the standard of all things. The example was 



LB loutre's dike-building. 377 

set by the throne and imitated in the higher classes of 
society. In this madcap race after sensual delights the 
treasury, carelessly guarded, became a prey to favorites 
and venal hangers-on. 

In Canada Intendant Bigot was the vampire which, 
sucking the life-blood of France, was rapidly hurrying 
her to ruin and dishonor. Not content with his personal 
delinquencies, he incited his friends to similar pecu- 
lations. Thus he wrote to Vergor, commandant at 
Beause'jour : " Make the best of your position, my dear 
Vergor ; shear and pare to your heart's content, so as to 
join me one day in France and buy yourself a mansion 
near mine." As might well be supposed this invitation 
to pillage was sure to find a response in that venal 
wretch, and so the promise of assistance to the emigrated 
Acadians was made void. In the face of all these 
obstacles Le Loutre went to France for the help he so 
much needed. A sum of fifty thousand francs was 
confided to him, and on his return dike-building was 
vigorously pushed. To protect himself against the 
venality of middlemen, he personally procured the 
necessary provisions and distributed them to the Acadian 
workers. This is, I believe, what afforded a pretext for 
the charge that Le Loutre was engaging in commercial 
transactions on his own account. The officers, whom 
he was thus balking in their attempts to defraud the 
treasury, were naturally very jealous of his great 
influence. They must have dreaded and hated him. 
This being the case, one understands Pichon's saying : 
" He had so ingratiated himself with the Marquis de la 
GalissionniSre that it became a crime to write against 
him." 

Oddly enough, Parkman has failed to give publicity 






378 BEATJSEJOUR ACADIANS. 

to this charge of unpriestly traffic. Perhaps he was not 
aware of it, for Pichon, I think, does not mention it. 
Or perhaps Parkman's silence may be due to the fact 
that he had found means to implicate him in a murder, 
compared to which the peddling of wares by a priest 
became a mere peccadillo. 

The funds did not arrive till the autumn of 1753, too 
late to begin operations that year. So far, little had been 
done to allay the distress of the emigrated Acadians. 
They led a rather miserable existence, working some- 
times for the French of Beause*jour, sometimes for the 
English of Fort Lawrence, in full view of the fields 
they had watered with their sweat and where they had 
spent happy years in plenty and peace. Their lot would 
have been more endurable had there been any prospect 
of stability in the future ; but the part of the country 
offered them was disputed territory. The Commission 
appointed to settle the frontier line was then sitting ; it 
might decide that their new lands belonged to England ; 
in which case they would have either to go into exile 
once more and face its concomitant tribulations and dis- 
tress or to accept conditions they had just refused at the 
cost of the greatest sacrifices. The circumstances of their 
departure, their forced expatriation after the destruction 
of their dwellings, were so many overwhelming memo- 
ries. The storm which Cornwallis had raised about the 
oath had long since been lulled. Their relatives, their 
brothers, their friends of Grand Pre, Pigiguit and 
Annapolis were no longer molested. They dwelt in 
tranquillity and abundance as in the happy days before 
the foundation of Halifax. They were once more 
beginning to hope that the question of the oath would 
never again be raised. To Cornwallis, himself consider- 






BEAUSEJOUR ACADIANS. 379 

ably humanized during the last two years of his adminis- 
tration, had succeeded a kindly and sympathetic man, 
the praise of whose intentions and actions was in every 
mouth. The combined result of all their surroundings 
was an increase of fear on the one hand and of regret on 
the other. Many crossed over with their families and 
their cattle to He Saint- Jean (Prince Edward Island). 
There at least, if they took up land, they ran no risk of 
relapsing into the state of affairs which had brought 
about their departure ; for the island was incontestably 
French soil and not disputed. But there also they 
would have a precarious and dangerous situation. This 
island, being long and narrow, left them ever exposed, 
in case of war, to the depredations of corsairs and to 
the horrors of an invasion. However no choice was 
left to them, and so most of them preferred this alter- 
native. 

As we have seen, those who remained at Beause*jour 
had addressed a petition to Governor Hopson, express- 
ing their desire to return to their farms, provided they 
were exempt from bearing arms. This proposal had 
been rejected. In the first months of his administra- 
tion, when Lawrence had not as yet conceived his sinis- 
ter design, he had made overtures to them through the 
commandant of Fort Lawrence. He had authorized 
him to declare that he had no intention, at present, of 
obliging them to bear arms. His guarantees were 
deemed insufficient. 

In making a report to the Lords of Trade of these 
negotiations, Lawrence said : " I was privately informed 
that at their return, they were in a very ill humor with 
Le Loutre and with the French commandant ; and that 
they represented to them the hardships they labored 



380 PICHON ON LE LOUTEE. 

under in not being suffered to accept the proposals of 
the English in a remonstrance that I am told was very 
little short of a mutiny." This information was fur- 
nished tty Pichon. 

Some months later, when Abbe Daudin was arrested, 
Pichon, writing to Captain Scott, told him " that the 
affair of Abbe* Daudin was making a great stir at Beau- 
s£jour; that Le Loutre had preached a very violent 
sermon, in which he abused the English, and showed 
the Acadians what they could expect from a treacher- 
ous nation which thus expelled a holy priest ; that the 
same fate was in store for the other priests, and that, if 
they recrossed the frontier, they would perish miserably, 
deprived of the sacraments and of the helps of their re- 
ligion." He requested them — this is the substance of 
Pichon's further statements — to meet at the Comman- 
dant's after Mass, saying that he had to read to them a 
letter from the Governor of Canada. But the refugees 
did not come. M. de Vergor twice sent a sergeant to 
notify them. Only about twenty came. As they 
seemed loth to enter the house, the Commandant got 
angry and ordered them to enter under pain of being 
put in irons. The letter of the Governor of Canada, 
which Pichon said was a forgery, was then read to them. 
It promised various kinds of assistance. " You must 
know," continues Pichon, " that, last month, eighty-three 
of the Acadian refugees sent two of their number with 
a petition to the Governor of Canada, in which they 
requested to be allowed to return to their farms, seeing 
that we could not give them suitable ones, those which 
we offered them being claimed by the English Govern- 
ment. They further said that they did not deem them- 
selves released from the obligations of their oath of 



PROPHETIC ALARM. 381 

fidelity to the King of Great Britain, and that they 
were threatened with the punishment of rebels should 
they be taken among the French." 

It is impossible for me either to contradict or to con- 
firm these assertions of Pichon. I quote him because 
what he relates is not unlikely ; on the contrary, his 
story is quite in keeping with the idea I have formed of 
the situation and of Le Loutre's motives. There is this 
contrast between Pichon's accusations anent the Howe 
murder and his present testimony that he is now on the 
spot at Beausejour, and therefore able to be thoroughly 
well-informed. In this case he seems to have had no 
motive for lying. 

After the excitement caused by Cornwallis's conduct 
on his landing at Halifax, Le Loutre had considerably 
cooled down, most probably because the danger he had 
foreseen had, for the time being, disappeared. But when 
he saw that Hopson was not coming back, and that 
Lawrence, whom he had had occasion to know, became 
titular governor and was already yielding to his cruel 
instincts, he once more took alarm. And when his 
colleague Daudin was dragged to Halifax and con- 
demned to quit the country, no doubt his impetuous zeal 
found in this incident all that was needed to set it 
aflame. From his point of view, and I am inclined to 
think it was the right one, Daudin was a victim of per- 
secution. This was, as Pichon makes him say, the 
beginning of a regime which would soon deprive the 
Acadians of their priests and of the free exercise of 
their religion. Was he mistaken ? Certainly not, and 
this certainty increases in the light of subsequent events. 
He knew enough of Lawrence's character to suppose 
him capable of any crime. Of course Le Loutre's im~ 



382 PROPHETIC ALARM. 

pulsiveness, his religious enthusiasm — some would say, 
his fanaticism — might cloud his better judgment and 
make him see intentions that did not exist, or at least 
exaggerate them; but I am convinced that, Cassandra- 
like, he saw clearly the woes that were to whelm the 
Acadian people, if the French were dislodged from their 
hold on the Bay of Fundy. Abbe" Le Guerne, who was 
also a missionary near Beause'jour on the French side, 
without sharing Le Loutre's ardor and vehemence, 
thoroughly shared his fears. He himself tells us that 
Le Loutre, after the taking of Beause^jour, and on leav- 
ing the country, strongly urged the Acadians to be 
submissive towards the English, in order, if possible, to 
avert the misfortunes which he saw threatening them. 



A FOKGED LETTER. 383 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Pichon's letter provokes an expedition against Beausejour — Prep- 
arations in New England — Monkton, assisted by Lieutenant- 
Colonels Winslow and Scott, arrives at Fort Lawrence with 
2,000 men, June 2nd, 1755 — Consternation of the French and 
weakness of the garrison — Assistance impossible — Siege of Beau- 
sejour — The Acadians refuse help — Three hundred are forced 
to take up arms — Capitulation — Le Loutre's flight — Pichon 
claims his reward — What England owes to the Acadians. 

During the autumn preceding the capture of Beau- 
sejour, Pichon communicated to Captain Hussey, then 
commanding at Fort Lawrence, a letter supposed to 
have been addressed to Le Loutre by Duquesne, Gov- 
ernor of Canada, in which was the following : " I invite 
you and M. de Vergor to seek a plausible pretext for a 
vigorous attack on the English." Hussey, when trans- 
mitting this letter to Captain Scott, enumerated at 
some length the reasons for which he believed that it 
must have been fabricated by Pichon himself.* Yet, 
three weeks later, Lawrence wrote to Shirley : 

" Being well informed that the French have designs of encroaching 
still farther upon His Majesty's right in this Province, and that they 
propose, the moment they have repaired the fortifications of Louis- 
burg, to attack our Fort at Chignecto (Fort Lawrence), I think it 
high time to make some effort to drive them from the north side of 
the Bay of Fundy." 

* See Chapter XVI. 






384 A COMPLETE SURPRISE. 

Under other circumstances Lawrence would have 
hesitated to base an important decision upon a letter the 
spuriousness of which was demonstrated to him by solid 
arguments ; but, in view of the projects he entertained, 
he now thought it advisable to seize the opportunity and 
to act as if there were no doubt as to the contents of 
that letter. He said he was " well informed," for he knew 
that this would be quite enough to make Shirley, whose 
ardent nature was cousin-german to his own, chime in 
with him and help him with all his might. Nor was he 
mistaken. Shirley immediately resolved to levy 2,000 
men in New England for an expedition destined to dis- 
lodge the French from their strongholds on the isthmus 
the following spring. Preparations were pushed on 
with vigor, and the fleet, comprising thirty-three vessels 
under the orders of Colonel Monkton, assisted by 
Lieutenant-colonels Winslow and Scott, appeared before 
Fort Lawrence on the 2nd of June, 1755. 

There is reason to believe that the letter sent by 
Pichon to Hussey as if it came from Duquesne, was 
really, as Hussey thought, " of Pichon\s own composing ; " 
for, since the preceding autumn, the French had done 
nothing to give a color of likelihood to this letter. The 
Indians were quieter than they had been for a long 
time. The garrison of Beausejour had not been rein- 
forced and numbered hardly 160 soldiers ; the fortifica- 
tions had not been improved. At the very moment 
when the fleet appeared at the entrance of the Bay, 
Le Loutre was busily engaged in the building of those 
dikes that were to ensure farms to the Acadians. So 
skilfully and secretly had this expedition been organized 
and conducted that its appearance before the fort was 
the first intimation of the danger that threatened the 



DE VERGOR'S VAIN THREATS. 885 

French. Although the two nations were, ostensibly at 
least, on terms of peace, there was no mistaking the 
purpose of this display of force; and great was the 
consternation at Beause*jour, which became greater still, 
a few days afterwards, when it was realized that no 
assistance could be hoped for from Cape Breton; for 
English vessels were cruising before Louisburg, and to 
force the blockade in order to assist Beausejour would 
expose Louisburg to be taken by surprise. There were, 
it is true, on the French side of the frontier, from twelve 
to fifteen hundred Acadians able to bear arms, and this 
was quite enough to hold the besiegers in check and 
perhaps to make the expedition a failure ; but for many 
reasons De Vergor could not count upon them.* Those 
who had always lived in this part of the country, and 
they were the majority, were undoubtedly French sub- 
jects. So were also those who, in Cornwallis's time or 
later, had chosen to emigrate ; on their arrival they had 
taken the oath to the French government ; but Law- 
rence, knowing their dispositions, had shrewdly played 
upon their feelings by signifying to them that they 
still remained British subjects, and that, should they 
ever be taken in arms against England, they would be 
treated as rebels. He knew that this declaration, how 
absurd soever it was from a legal point of view, would 
trouble their consciences and give them scruples of 
which he would take advantage. These scruples coupled 
with his threats would produce the desired effect. 

De Vergor issued severe orders, commanding all able- 
bodied Acadians to repair without delay to the fort for 



* De Vergor, ia a letter to M. de Drucourt the preceding year, said that 
in case of attack he could not rely on the assistance of the Acadians, whom 
the English intimidated by their threats. 

2 5 



386 " LE SIEGE DE VELOURS." 

enlistment ; but, though his orders were repeated and 
accompanied by threats, they remained deaf to his com- 
mands : " He sent them orders upon orders," says Mur- 
doch ; " they answered that he should have used them 
better when they were in his power." De Vergor could 
get together only about three hundred of those who, 
having no homestead, lived in Fort Beausdjour, and, 
receiving rations from the Government, were under its 
control. But even they, in the straits to which they 
were reduced, with a view to protect themselves against 
disaster, stipulated that the orders should be repeated in 
writing. This force was insufficient for a long resist- 
ance, especially as two thirds of it were men who had 
never done military duty, and, what is worse, were 
fighting unwillingly under compulsion of the most ter- 
rible threats. " Many of the Acadians," Murdoch adds, 
u escaped from the Fort, but seventeen of them were 
caught and brought back." 

Nevertheless, had the chief been brave and deter- 
mined, it would have still been possible to make a fine 
stand and save the honor of France ; but the defence was 
most miserable: nothing that I know of in the military 
annals of that nation approaches, in point of stupidity 
and cowardice, the conduct of this siege, which the 
French themselves derisively nicknamed " the velvet 
siege." With Vergor and his kinsman and accomplice 
De Vannes, the greed of gold had stifled every feeling 
of honor and patriotism. Their onty care seems to have 
been to save their ill-gotten gains and their precious 
persons. Without waiting for the investment of the 
fort, without any deadly fight, despite the protests of 
Le Loutre and some officers, De Vergor made overtures 
to Colonel Monkton, and on June 16th, only fourteen 



THE FRENCH WITHDRAW. 387 

days after the arrival of the expedition, Beausejour 
capitulated on the following terms : * 

" 1st. The commandant, officers, staff and others, employed for the 
King, and the garrison of Beausejour, shall go out with arms and 
baggage, drums beating. 2nd. The garrison shall be sent direct by sea 
to Louisburg, at the expense of the King of Great Britain. 3rd. 
The garrison shall have provisions sufficient to last until they get to 
Louisburg. 4th. As to the Acadians, as they were forced to hear 
arms under pain of death, they shall be pardoned. 5th. The garri- 
son shall not bear arms in America for the space of six months, t 

" Robert Monkton. 

11 At the Camp before Beausejour. 
" 16th June, 1755." 

This capitulation involved at the same time that of 
Fort Gaspereau on Bay Verte. This latter was de- 
fended by a mere handful of soldiers and was, strictly 
speaking, only a storehouse for provisions and ammuni- 
tion. Vergor ordered M. de Villerai, the commandant, 
to surrender his fort ; which he did a few days later. 
Beausejour was immediately occupied by the English 
troops and its name changed to that of Cumberland. In 
the course of the ten days that followed the capitulation, 
all the Acadians came one by one to surrender their arms 
to Colonel Monkton. Not long afterwards the French 
also evacuated the fort of the River St. John ; thus there 
remained no vestige of French domination north of 
the Bay of Fundy, except the trading posts at Mirami- 
chi and on the Gulf coast in the neighborhood of Bay 
des Chaleurs. Le Loutre had prudently slipped off 

* Before the overtures for a surrender a bomb thrown by the besiegers 
fell on one of the casemates that was used as a prison, and killed four 
Frenchmen and Mr. Hay, an English officer who was a prisoner. This 
officer had been captured some days before by the Indians, who were get- 
ting ready to scalp him when he was snatched from their hands by an 
Acadian named Brassard and led to the Fort, where he was very kindly 
treated. 

| Document omitted in the volume of the Archives. 



388 PIC HON PLEADS FOR PAY. 

before the occupation of Fort Beausejour, and on his 
way to Quebec, through the solitudes of the St. John 
River, he had leisure to meditate on the instability of 
human affairs. From Quebec he embarked for France 
in the following August ; but another misfortune awaited 
him : the ship he was on was taken at sea by the Eng- 
lish, and he was imprisoned in Elizabeth Castle in the 
Isle of Jersey, whence he did not recover his freedom 
till eight years later on the conclusion of the peace. 

The capture of Beause*jour was really Pichon's work. 
It was the letter of Duquesne, whether true or forged, 
that gave rise to the expedition. According to a pre- 
vious agreement between him and Captain Scott, instead 
of accompanying the French garrison to Louisburg, he 
was held prisoner for some time at Beausejour, then 
sent to Fort Edward at Pigiguit, and finally to Halifax, 
where lie remained apparently a prisoner, in order that 
he might mingle with the French officers who were 
already there or who would be brought thither, and learn 
the secret plans of the French. 

It was time for him to claim the full price of his serv- 
ices. The memorial he addressed on this subject to 
the Governor's secretary bears, as may well be supposed, 
the stamp of his baseness and cupidity. Men of this 
kind can hardly possess aught else than second-rate 
skill, ingenious enough, perhaps, in the playing of their 
vile parts, but puerile and lame when they have to seek 
their own interest, for then all the vileness in their 
make-up oozes at every pore. Pichon's memorial con- 
tains, together with much sycophancy, a long enumera- 
tion of his services and losses : " I have lost," he says, 
" a fine future with my countrymen, in order to attach 
myself to the fortune of a nation which I loved, and which 






PICHON PLEADS FOR PAY. 389 

1 know to be the most reasonable and the most generous of 

all those that exist in both hemispheres Mr. Scott 

had promised that he would surround me with comfort 
and ease. Am I not now warranted in desiring the 
fulfilment of these promises, by securing for myself a 
solid and advantageous position ? . . . Kindly bear in 
mind that I had a good social status in France, where I 
still own property. The Court had charged me with .... 
These posts would have been very profitable ; I have 
had to give them up, as well as all I have in France, 
whither I must never think of returning. I have lost 
the extensive property I had bought near Fort Beau- 
se*jour, moreover two houses and gardens on a very fine 
site. By the taking of this fort I have lost two valuable 
horses, a quantity of provisions, furniture, linen, clothes, 
books and a thousand guineas stolen from me 

" There are circumstances when a man should be 
allowed to speak in praise of himself, and when it is his 
interest to make himself known and to direct attention 
to the services he has rendered. . . . 

" I am well aware of all the power the Admiral wields 
and of the advantages I may hope for from his illustrious 
patronage and from that of His Excellency the Gover- 
nor. May I not request the honor of a recommendation 
from them to General Shirley, as well as to the other 
governors of the English provinces, in order to invite 
them to exercise their generosity by doing good to the 
most devoted of men in the service of the wisest of na- 
tions f The main point would be to beg their Excel- 
lencies to grant me their powerful patronage at the Court 
of England and with the Prime Minister, in order to 
obtain special favors for me. I am pretty well stricken 



390 SURRENDER DUE TO ARCADIANS. 

in years and have reached an age when one's needs become 
generally greater" 

Among services rendered, Pichon mentioned his having 
brought about the surrender of Beause*jour, by persuad- 
ing the Acadians that were in the fort to refuse to 
fight at all and to insist on immediate surrender. 
Although any assertion of Pichon's carries very little 
weight, especially when, as in this instance, it was his 
interest to make the most of his services, still, with due 
allowance for his bragging about his influence in the 
matter, his affirmation may well be true as to the 
Acadians refusing to fight, a fact which could easily be 
verified at the time and which is sustained by much 
other evidence. If so, as we already have proof that 
the great majority of the Acadians refused to bear 
arms, we may also rest assured that those who, under 
pressure of cruel threats when they were absolutely at 
the mercy of the authorities, consented to enlist, did, 
by refusing to fight at the critical moment, bring about 
the surrender of Beause'jour. As to the Acadians, said 
that article of the capitulation which concerned them, 
as they were forced to bear arms under pain of death, they 
are pardoned. 

All this proves that Lawrence was not mistaken when, 
at the beginning of his administration, he wrote to the 
Lords of Trade concerning the Acadians who had emi- 
grated : " I believe that a very large part of them would 
submit to any terms rather than take up arms on either 
side." Lawrence knew them well and could make correct 
forecasts with respect to their future conduct. And yet 
this opinion of Lawrence seems strange. Why should 
they not have taken up arms for the French ? Were 
they not subjects of France and as such had they not 



Lawrence's correct forecast. 391 

the right to serve her cause? Undoubtedly. The 
greater part of them had dwelt for generations in this 
part of the country ; the remainder were those to whom 
Cornwallis, revoking the compromise of 1830, had given 
the choice between an unrestricted oath and departure, 
that is, the choice between English and French alle- 
giance. " My friends," he had said, " the moment that 
you have declared your desire to leave and submit your- 
self to another Government, our determination was to 
hinder nobody." Even had he not made this declaration, 
it is evident that, by revoking the condition of their 
stay, he set them free to depart, and, once gone, as soon 
as they dwelt on French territory, they became French 
subjects. It mattered little that the part of the country 
where they took refuge was then disputed by the two 
crowns. The telling fact was that it was then occupied 
by France ; this was enough to settle the question of 
their French citizenship in virtue of the most elementary 
principles of the law of nations and especially of the 
diplomatic formula uti possidetis. How, then, could 
Lawrence, in the teeth of this evident right, believe that 
they would not take up arms against him ? Simply 
because he knew that a question of this sort, clear 
enough in itself, would not appear to them clear enough 
to satisfy their conscience ; that the scruples that would 
beset them would suffice to keep them from acting ; 
that the oath they had formerly taken and the habit of 
looking upon themselves as British subjects would be a 
powerful deterrent ; that long years of peace had made 
them lose the taste for righting ; and that, by taking up 
arms, they would provoke their tyrannic oppressor to 
wreak his fury on their brothers of the Peninsula. To 
make his belief a certainty, Lawrence had taken care to 



392 ACADIANS DESERVE GRATITUDE. 

issue a proclamation in which he warned them that they 
still remained British subjects, that they were not re- 
leased from their oath of fidelity, and that, should they 
be taken armed, they would be treated as rebels. 

Lawrence's forecast was fully confirmed. Despite 
the efforts and threats of the French, out of fifteen hun- 
dred Acadians only three hundred took up arms, and, 
even of these, several deserted ; finally those who re- 
mained refused to fight, and Beausdjour had to capitu- 
late.* To an impartial observer these Acadians would 
seem to have won for themselves, not merely the par- 
don which the capitulation granted them, but the eter- 
nal gratitude of England for the territory, the prestige 
and the glory they had brought her. At any rate the 
official pardon in the deed of surrender should have im- 
plied perfect immunity from annoyance for anything 
that might have happened in the past. We shall see 
that it was not so, and that, for want of valid motives, 
Lawrence made the events just related serve as pre- 
texts for the deportation of the Acadians of the Penin- 
sula. Hence the importance, on the reader's part, of 
deeply fixing these events in his memory ; they will 
help him to understand subsequent developments. 
Meanwhile, the conduct of the Acadians on either side 
of the frontier should be separately examined. I will 
first take up the case of the Acadians who remained on 
English territory. 

* De Vergor and De Villeray were brought before a council of war at 
Quebec, three years later, on account of their cowardice at the siege of 
Beausejour and Gaspereau. " De Vergor and De Villeray," says Les 
Memoires sur le Canada, "were discharged ; the first explained his feeble 
defence by the fact that the Acadians refused to assist them and raised a 
mutiny." 













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